Life after Life
by Niliathiel
Summary: Set after X Men 3. A story focussed on Magneto.
1. The man in the park

Author´s note:

Okay guys. I got inspired yesterday night when I watched the new X men movie. It´s great so go and watch it! And: if you have not yet seen the movie do not read this! It´s full of spoilers ;-)

All right, you have been warned.

Magneto has been my favourite character throughout the movie series and to see what happened to him in X3 was sooo sad. So... this is the beginning of a story of mine set directly after the third movie. Hope you enjoy and drop a line or two ;-)

Disclaimer:

None of the characters appearing in the X-Men movies belong to me. I just have some fun with them and try not to do them any harm. This is just for fun, not for profit.

Chapter one:

The man in the park

It was one of these days...one of these days when people would go out for a stroll in the sunlight or take their kids and family out into the green. One of these days when the sun was shining in such a manner that everybody who would look at such a scenery would not be able to do anything else but feel happy... feel that the world was all right and there was nothing that made bad thoughts or sadness reach you.

The park was just one of these places in the sunshine with people around, kids playing ball in some distance. Human families with their ordinary human kids and a happy and careless future ahead and ever so surely there were some of the other species around as well. Those who knew and hid it and those who had not yet discovered what they were... like maybe the little girl that was running after the shaggy black dog giggling full of joy ... the ordinary giggle of a kid that does not yet think of trouble, sadness and dangers that may lie ahead.

Happiness, carelessness, harmony was all around and with even a hand full of chirping, colourful birds in the trees that gave shadow to the few figures sitting on the benches around, the scenery bore an almost obscure image of normality. All these ordinary people sitting here, many of them old already, happy to enjoy some warmth of the sunrays, pleased to just sit there and talk or being consumed by a nice little game of chess, enjoying the simple company of the ones sitting across them, deeply in thought about which figure to move next.

He did no longer care to shoot glances at all those stupid and self-absorbed creatures. He did not even know whether he should hate them or simply ban them out of his thoughts. Ban all the laughter and happiness and just give in to his own self-pity. He would have hated them... all of them, old and young, all their stupid and ignorant attitudes towards those that did not fit into the scheme of their ordinary world... and yet he felt confused. It was hard and he almost hated himself for it. The words... those words were still echoing in his head... after he had stumbled away over the devastated end of the bridge and the ruins that had once been the laboratory buildings on Alcatraz. "One of them!" He heaved a heavy sigh, inaudible though it was even for the couple of old, withered men sitting closest to his table. "One of them!" No. These words were inside his head and nothing would ever change it or ban the words from his mind. What the Wolverine had said to him in that very night had been more of a strike than anything could have possibly been. He was no mutant any more. Everything he had been fighting against, each and every thought he had had over the years, all the hatred that had nurtured his heart had suddenly lost their basis. His old self was gone. Magneto did no longer exist he thought with sarcasm. All he was now was one of those old, stubborn and most ordinary men sitting in a park playing chess... only that nobody was there to spend some company.

Although he knew it was senseless, he slowly extended his right hand and let it hover over the small chess figure, one of the black ones. Although he knew that what he was doing resulted from either childish stupidity or simple unwillingness to accept the plain truth he focussed his mind on the metal the thing contained. It had never been hard for him to control metal... not in his adult years that was...but now... it had fallen from him. He did not even try hard to focus his mind, because he knew what he was doing was nothing but the stubborn attempt to wish back what was forever lost for him. He concentrated though and it made his heart jump with excitement to see that the small figure was actually moving. Ever so slightly but still... he blinked... and when he opened his eyes the effect was gone again. Maybe it had never been there. Magneto was dead. All he had left was Eric Lehnsherr, a broken, ordinary old man with a humour that was too sarcastic for most people to handle.

He felt his thoughts travel away from the figures before him although he tried to concentrate on anything but reality. He looked up, his cap shading his eyes from being blinded, looking again at the young girl and her dog. He was almost certain she could be a mutant. Something about her told it to him clearly although he had never been able to detect mutant abilities before they showed. The girl was careless, throwing a stick and the dog barked playfully and then ran after it. He looked at the two of them. What a peaceful scene it was. What an ordinary scene... an ordinary life.

"Jenny! Jenny, let´s go." The voice of a woman, most obviously the kid´s mother was echoing across the lawn. The girl turned her head, saw who was calling for her and got to her feet. "But Mum... Rusty won´t.."

The woman just gave a little laugh. "Don´t even try it, Jenny. You know we´re late already. Rusty." The last word was directed at the black dog. "C´mon here, boy."

The animal barked again and ran towards the woman. The girl had gotten up by now and had walked over to the path leading to the exit, her mother not turning her head to look at the little one.

Eric was not sitting far from them and in this moment he felt angry with himself for having let himself getting carried away into watching those ordinary people. He looked in front of him again, his head popped on his left elbow. He felt the girl´s gaze on him, yet he did not react to it. Children were curious at times and he ignored it. Still, his stubbornness was not rewarded. From the corner of his eye she saw her tilting her head to one side and then starting towards him. Her mother, still busy with the dog, paid no attention.

He looked up slightly, trying to give the cheeky little thing his most evil glare when the girl climbed to sit on the bench opposite of him. He could tell she was younger than he had thought. 7... maybe even only 6 years old and she was eyeing him with a friendliness and curiosity he had never been regarded with by anybody in the last years. For her, he was just an old man. Still he kept ignoring her presence though he sighed inwardly at the realisation this little creature would not care about this at all.

"You can´t play this game alone." she said with some bewilderment as if telling an even younger kid about something she had found out to be totally stupid.

"Really?" he grumbled as an answer already angry with himself to have given in to saying something at all.

"Yeah." she said and was now eyeing him like she thought he was a weird old guy to think so. "My dad told me how to play this. I know it´s a game for two people, but you are sitting here along."

He gave her another stern look although he felt his stare must have somewhat lessened. "Maybe I am just waiting for someone." he answered in a voice more friendly than he had ever intended.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe." she answered. Then she looked at the field. "I would like to play" she then said and he just raised an eyebrow to indicate his surprise and bewilderment. Looking at her again he was suddenly sure she was no mutant, but an ordinary homo sapiens... like you are one, the nasty voice in the back of his head told him.

"Well I do not think an old man like I am one would be a good company to play chess with, young lady." he said and managed a smile. He had not smiled in this way for a long time and to his surprise realised the warmth that it set free in his chest.

"But I am good at it." she said, her eyes glowing in the very way only children´s eyes do. "I am better than my dad already..."

"Jenny!" She turned around when she heard her mother´s voice. "Come on, honey, we have to go home." She smiled at her daughter and walked towards her, the dog by her side. "I´m sorry, I did not see she had come here" she said apologetically. "I hope she did not bother you. She can be like this a lot." The mother added, brushing a strand of her brown hair away from her face.

Eric had been looking at the chess game again and now raised his eyes again to meet hers, his eyes showing from under the cap´s rim. "Oh, no. No offence taken, my dear" he answered being almost furious at himself sounding just like one of the fools around him.

"Well, I..." she started again, but when looking into his face, her eyes hardened. For a second or two she regarded him with a strange mix of curiosity and thought as if she was trying to think about something... he knew what it was... he could tell it from the way she looked at him... and from the fact that she was grabbing her daughter by the hand, ushering her away surely more unconsciously than intended. Still, there remained some doubt in her gaze before she turned away. He knew what she had thought and he did not need to be a telepath for this. She had thought that she knew this face. She had seen him... he had been on TV no long time ago. But she was unable to connect the face of Magneto to the face of an ordinary, weak, old man sitting in a park playing chess. She had not recognised him, he was sure of this. She gave him no more look when she, her daughter and the dog walked away.

Yes. He thought to himself sarcastically. Magneto was dead.


	2. The mutant he once was

AUTHOR´S NOTE:

First of all, thanks to the ones of you who posted reviews:-)

ARCLIGHT: I never really cared for Scott, I have to admit, but I aways liked Magneto a lot. Surely also has to do with IanMcKellen. And yeah, it was so sad to watch what happened to him! On the theory you mentioned in your review... hm... what makes you so certain to think the author thinks the same way, Eric does? ;-)

INNOCENZIA: Thanks:-) Not what you would have expected? Neither did I expect the story to continue like this. I sooo wished for Mystique to come and join him, poor fellow he was having to play chess on his own!

BROADWAYPOETRESS

Hehe, seems very familiar to me... I went with a friend too and both of us cried!

Yep, this will be continued, here you go. Hope you enjoy it.

DISCLAIMER: The usual yadda yadda...

Chapter 2

The mutant he once was...

When Eric came home, there was noone to greet him and for some reason this filled him with grim satisfaction. The brooding silence that met him when he opened the door was much better company than all those follish, happy people down in the park. He did not know why he had gone there. Maybe his heart had simply yourned for a little light, a small sense of normality. Yet, this was not normality. Nor was the place he had just entered.

He knew it would have been best to abandon what had been his home for all these years and not a home only, but also a fortress. In all these years the small island had been his stronghold against what he had felt to be more of a threat than any mutant could be: humans. Magneto´s lair had never been a hiding place in the ordinary sense, rather a kind of retreat from the absurdity of what this world and their humans called normal. Here, he had felt like the mutant he had been. Here had been the retreat and operation base of the brotherhood. But now... no more. The rooms were empty, the walls, many of them black and carved from the very bones of the rocks the buildings stood on, were heavy with the silence of recognition that times had changed. And even though this place was still a secret, even though he had not been here for a while and even though he knew the place would never again be the same, the lair was still his home. Or rather the home of the mutant he had once been. Somehow the old man he now had become did not really fit, he thought with a grim and joyless smile when he entered the silent rooms.

Even without his abilities he had reached the place easily. It was hidden and only few knew about the lair´s whereabouts. Even though the brotherhood had been instable more than once, especially in these times after his plans to turn the leaders of this world into mutants had failed, never had any word about this place reached the outside world. And thus it had stayed a secret. There had been much speculation about the place where Magneto had been hiding all these years and although he had been travelling a lot for what he had tried to achieve, this had always been what had most felt like home... Home... this word seemed strange and unfamiliar to his own ears. Home was something, kids associated with their families, something that parents thought of when thinking about where to go after work. The part of his childhood he remembered so well, as the wounds that had been caused in these years ran so deep, had never tasted the sweetness of anything that had been worthy of being called ´home.´

Everything about this place had remained unchanged. The room next to his bed chambers where he had worked many nights, was still the same, and yet it seemed to him as things had turned upside down. When he came to think about why this was so, he did not need long till it struck him why this place no longer suited him: it was all the metal around, all those things that reminded him of what he had once been, or rather... who he had once been and what he had been forced to become.

He had not been surprised to find the place emtpy. Noone was left and he grimly forced himself not to think about who had once been sharing this place with him. They had been part of the brotherhood, his brotherhood, but these times were gone. Gone forever. All those that had backed him, had followed him, looking up to him in awe yet never truly understanding his aims, were gone... they had all fled and would never return. He felt foolish about ever having thought of them as his equals.

As he realized now, he had spent the last few minutes standing in the doorframe of the door that led to his study. A bleak, simple, large room with a single desk fashioned of black iron in the middle, dominating the room in a gloomy manner. Yes, this had been Magneto´s realm, an ambiance that had fitted his grim taste for things. From some impuls he walked over to the heavy chair, sat down on it and closed his eyes, lids suddenly heavy. The metal back under his hands suddenly felt colder than he had ever felt it to be. Cold. Reminder of something that had passed, was gone. For a moment he remained in this state, once more giving in to the confusing mix of thoughts that were torturing his brain. Maybe it was time to accept that it was over. There was nothing to bring back what had once been. Nothing. Maybe, he thought cynically, he should look for a new place to stay; although nobody knew of this lair, it would have only reminded him of what had happened, day after day.

Drowsyness started to ingulf his senses, made him feel dizzy, his arms and legs feel heavy and tired. Peace. Sleep. Maybe it was as simple as that and a little rest was all he needed. Still, the disturbing thoughts did not leave him as his conscious entered a dream like state – the visions kept haunting him. Jean, an evil he had set free, Charles´ face before he died... and the horrid feeling of weekness and disbelief that had captured every fibre of his body and soul when the ´cure´ had entered his blood. Maybe this was the worst memory of all... maybe...

His eyes snapped open, his mind being brutally ripped out of a stream of nightmare-like pictures when some snapping sound entered his mind. He was alert with a start, but could not locate at first what had woken him until he saw it... still rolling over the dark floor was some item which he recognized as a small biro with an iron magnetic hilt. He must have pushed it from the desk with his arm being popped up to support his head. His arm had slid and must have pushed the thing to the ground, he thought as he watched it come to a halt. He instantly thought of continuing his nap somewhere else, but something told him things had somehow changed. Without being able to tell why, he suddenly knew someone was present near him. He was unable to tell what made him feel this with certainty, he simply knew... and the next thought to enter his mind was him being a powerless and weak old man, only a shadow of the mutant he had once been, unable to defend himself against anybody who might have come to ...

There were steps close by and although his mind was racing, he did not move. He straightened in his chair, listening intensely. A grim satisfaction suddenly spread inside him: if this was the moment they were coming for him, so be it. He would meet them with pride, with dignity. He would not give them the triumph of overpowering an old and weak dodderer. His eyes narrowed in grim expectation. His gaze focussed the door he had left open... and it was hard for him to hold back a sound of surprise when he saw the slim figure stepping through it, cautiously entering the room.

"Why have you come back?" Erik greeted the boy who was standing a few steps away from where he was sitting, eyeing him in a way he could hardly describe. "I would have expected you to go back to your... friends." Sarcasm had always been a talent of his. Maybe a survival strategy.

The young man on the other side of the room leaned against the door frame, his blond hair being a contrast to the blackness of the wall. "I thought I would find you here." he said instead of directly answering his question. "I wondered about what the brotherhood would do next.."

"The brotherhood?" Eric had raised his voice slightly so it echoed from the walls. "I thought you to be smarter than this. Smart enough to know that the brotherhood has ceased its existence."

He could tell the boy had been somewhat waiting for a statement like this, as there was a small flash of emotion in his vivid eyes. However, Erik did not know whether Pyro had expected this answer... or another.

"So it is true." the boy then said and the question he had surely intended sounded rather like a statement. "The cure..."

"Have you come back to debate what is obvious, St.John?" Erik replied in a dangerously low voice that, when still being Magneto, would have made the boy shut up on an instance. Now the effect had somewhat lessened and did not even keep the young mutant from flipping something in his pocket. A lighter most obviously, Eric guessed as although John had constructed a kind of glove with a lighter mechanism in it in order to switch on flames in an instant whenever he found it to be appropriate (which was quite often) he had never quite given up his annoying habit of flipping the lid of a lighter.

"John?" he just said. "You call me John?" The young mutant shifted his position, crossing his arms in front of his chest, letting the lighter at peace. "It was you who told me, I was Pyro. A god among insects."

Eric sighed and replied nothing. It was simply not necessary, he thought and although he had to admit he had been somewhat happy to see a familiar face, he almost began to wish John had not come back.

"Why have you really come back, John?" he asked, insisting on not calling the boy by his mutant name. If nothing was left of Magneto´s pride and power, at least the power to chose his words to tease would not be taken from him.

"I don´t know really..." The boy shrugged and remained where he was. They had never been too close, always had Pyro kept distance between them which resulted from the most obvious admirance he had regarded the older man with. Respect, maybe even mingled with a slight hint of fear.

"Whatever has happened, I will not forsake the brotherhood. I am still a mutant you know!" he said in a manner that made Magneto smile inwardly. John gave a flick of his hand and a bright, small ball of fire appeared in his palm. Magneto perked an eyebrow. "Indeed. Who would have guessed?" he mumbled sarcastically, but if the young mutant had heard his biting remark at all, he kept silent about it.

"You are still you." the young one went on and now there was a light in his eyes. "and I have become more powerful since I left school. I am sure there still are some of the brotherhood out there, we only need to gather them again. If I led the Brotherhood, I´m sure we..."

He could not help it and chuckled. "St. John, leading the brotherhood?" He got up and walked towards the young mutant. "Well, it flatters me having made you aware of your strenghts as a mutant but still I am somewhat disappointed of you to think it is no more than a child´s game to keep up what took me years to establish. With all due humility, my young friend, Magneto was one of the most powerful mutants on this planet, so do not consider yourself appropriate to take up his mantle that easily."

Eric´s voice had hardened with the last words and with grim satisfaction he noticed the boy´s eyes flicker insecurly as if searching how much of the man in front of him was still the mutant he had chosen to follow. Then Eric slowly turned around and left the room, ignoring John who was still standing there, waiting for more to be said.

"I am strong, I am a powerful mutant, and you know it!" the boy started again and Eric thought a slight quiver of anger had entered the young man´s voice. The boy did not yet dare to raise his voice against him regardless of what had happened, but there was a good deal of determination, will and... despair. He turned to look at the stern face of the young mutant and remembered the moment in the forest, only a few days ago when Pyro had told him he would have killed Charles if he, Magneto, had told him to. Eric sadly realized that this boy had never truly understood his aims... and in this moment he asked himself how many of those, following him blindly, ever had.

"I see myself in you" Eric said with a low voice, turned around and walked away. "A long time ago." John did not follow him and said no more, but Eric continued, then stopping in his pace. "Do not mistake determination and lust for power. Never." He slowly shook his head before making a few more steps. Before he closed the doors of his bedchambers behind, him he added, with a low voice, yet clear for the young mutant to comprehend: "There have been too many who have made this mistake and too many, who have suffered from it. Always keep that in mind, St. John!"


	3. Storms of a rainy night

Author´s note:

Oh man, I think I never got such a big amount of reviews in so short a time. :-D So, as a thank you to all of you, here´s the next chapter. Hope you keep on enjoying... and reviewing ;-)

GWolf:

Well, thank you. Hope you enjoy this one. Hm.. the chess piece, yeah... wait what comes of that...

Innocenzia:

Once more, thank you, dear. :-)

telegb:

Yeah, he isn´t the best guy, but I like his character because he´s not one of those biased baddies. So, here you go, an update for you.

Carmille DeWinter

Thanks a lot for this remark. I might use this theory later in the story... if I may? Yeah, wait and see what happens. As I said, I was pittying him soo much for what happened. Oh, as I saw in your bio... another German. Hi there:-)

Malonami

Nice try. ;-) No, I won´t answer these questions right now, but you will get the answers if you stay tuned and keep on reading. Thanks so far.

AngelofSnow

No, this surely would not be an all too pleasant encounter for Eric. On Mystique... wait and see ;-)

LPs Mum

Absolutely, this is just what adds more depth to his character than to all the others. He´s simply the most complex character (of the movies... can´t really judge the comics)

Simmandlotrrock

Some here seem to wonder just that... hehe... wait and see... :-)

CHAPTER 3

STORMS OF A RAINY NIGHT

During all those years, sleep had seldomly come to him easily. He had never minded too much about this, as dreams were most likely to cause distress and sadness... the more gentle ones of them, that was. If he was lucky, he would wake up with the distant memory of grey colours and blurred screams in the back of his head and nothing more. Unfortunately, dreams were not always like this. Once in a while a truly miserable nightmare would grip his mind and torture him at night, and these were the very nights, when Eric Lehnsherr had rise from his bed and walk into his study, wave his hand to switch on the stereo with his powers and let himself getting carried away by the tunes of some classical music. There was nothing that could more possible ease the pain. This... and him spending nights brooding over operations of the brotherhood yet to be taken out, planning, shuffling ideas in his head. It had been the only way to effectively chase away the nightmares of his own past. Putting all his force, all his power and all his determination into the effort of making this world a place where every mutant child could live without fear of repression, had been the source to keep him alive.

Mystique had watched his nightly restlessness without commenting on it for the most time. Now and then she would join him, offering her company knowing this would decrease his own restlessness, her simply standing close to him or sitting nearby without a word. If anyone had ever gotten close to understanding the reasons and goals behind the mind of Magneto, it had been her.

And then there were nights that offered a peace which was almost too good to be true. Those rare nights when Eric would sleep dreamlessly and no sorrow would enter his mind. Dreamless sleep was the only way of finding peace at night, for if dreams did come, they never brought anything pleasant. The nightmares of his own childhood had so deeply craved themselves into every bit of his being that over the years they had become a part of his self. They would never let him at peace, but linger in a corner of his mind, eagerly and at the same time patiently waiting till their time had come. Waiting till the night had fallen, to attack. And often, the horrors of these dreams went far beyond the blurry visions of grey and muffled screams. Just like the dreams in the very night following the evening on which Eric Lensherr had returned to Magneto´s lair.

When he woke with a start, his heart was racing, thundering with the speed of someone who had run for his life. He was panting heavily, the echo of a scream still too close to be chased away. He did no longer know who had screamed, whether it had been his mother´s or his own voice to express the horror and panic the scenery around them had evoked. Outside, a thunderstorm was shaking the world, crashing the ocean´s wave against the rocks. The walls were thick, but still they could not hold back the sound of the rain nor the thunder. To him it had always seemed like the rocks had even intensified the sound of thunder. This had been one of the things that had belonged to this island as Magneto had belonged here: the sound of thunder rolling over the dark rocks at night. He did not mind the thunder. What had always been nagging on his senses was the rain. Rain was memory. Rain was darkness. Rain reminded him of the first humans who had labelled him a social misfit.

There was no need in trying to get back to sleep. Eric swung his legs out of his bed, remained sitting there for a moment and then got up. A bolt of lightning illuminated the room for a split second as he walked over to the door. Apart from that, the night remained all silent, the thunder followed in quite some distance which told him the thunderstorm was already moving on. The rain though, remained.

He slowly made his way across the seemingly deserted corridors. He knew that John was still around, although judging the time he was almost certain the boy was asleep by now.

He entered the kitchen, a large room which somehow did not fit into the subtle, spartanic style of the rest of the lair, maybe because the pure idea of a room like a kitchen did not fit into the concept of such a place at all. There was a large window opposite the door, facing the outside world and the rough sea which from the outside nevertheless was well hidden.

Erik approached the refridgirator, his throat suddenly dry, still feeling somewhat exhausted and beyond breath from trying to escape from whatever had been hunting him through his dreams. He reached for the hilt when another heavy thunder rolled over the rocky surface of the island, one so heavy that he had the feeling the very foundations of stones the buildings stood on were being shaken. The fridge even seemed to tingle slightly, before he touched the iron hilt and opened it.

He did not find much food nor beverages inside and thought with a sarcastic smile that even if the presence of the boy had already started to bother him, he could at least send him over to get some food in the morning. This was his place after all, so if John wanted to stay this, was the least he could ask him to do. He grabbed for a bottle of table water and a glass and returned to the window to watch the storm. Somehow, a weird kind of irony, he thought, the weather so well reflected the feelings that were raging inside him. If only he could chase away the torturing images that kept haunting him whenever it was raining.

The very thought of it made him shiver inwardly – a cold that was more intense than the cold he was feeling now. Indeed these rooms were not very well heated and for the first time in a long period, he was actually feeling cold. He was only wearing a black shirt and equally dark trousers and his arms suddenly felt chilly. He sighed and crossed them in front of his chest, not without his gaze unwillingly lingering on the few, fading numbers on his left forearm.

When he lifted his eyes, he could see a reflection in the window. The world outside was dark and the light he had switched on, though not visible from outside, was throwing back the shadows and causing reflections of the room behind him. For a short, weird moment he actually thought the fugure behind him to be Mystique, but then at once he realised the slim shade in the window´s reflection. Pyro.

"Find no sleep, St. John?" If nothing else these days was pleasant, he still found some joy in teasing the young mutant. He never knew whether Pyro cared about this or whether he was annoyed. Sometimes he hoped so, but Pyro never showed any signs of being bothered.

"You?" Instead of answering his question, Pyro, in a seemingly casual manner, simply ignited a ball of fire in his right hand. So he was wearing his glove, Eric regocnized with a faint smile as he watched the reflection of the flames. He still had his back on the boy.

"Nice of you to light a fire, St. John. It´s getting colder these days." he then said bluntly and turned around, not allowing the young mutant the triumph he had intended with his action, for most obviously Pyro´s playing around with the flame was just yet another attempt to try and test his borders of power... and the power he believed to possess now and that in the young mutant eyes made him more mighty now than the former leader of the brotherhood who had now become the human Erik Lehnsherr. Pyro´s suggestion to take over the brotherhood had just been the beginning or so it seemed.

If not Erik´s first remark had annoyed the boy, the second one had. He could clearly read it in the stubbornness that had entered John´s eyes. With a rash movement he closed his fist and the flame vanished. Then he swung himself onto the counter. "No." he then said, answering Eric´s earlier question and thus giving in to his role in the power play. "It´s the rain." he added. "I can never sleep when it rains too hard."

Eric turned back to face the window, scowling slightly. What did this boy know about the rain? What did he, in his young ignorance know about stormy nights? About nights when the wind was not letting oneself sleep, howling around the baracks like wolves, increasing the fear of even worse things to come once the day would break although one hoped the night would end. These young people!

"Did you...think about what I said earlier?" There was caution in the young one´s voice. The powers of Magneto might have vanished, Pyro´s compliance had remained... it was faint and the boy was urging to break out of it, but still it was there, binding him to his, as Eric was sure, own annoyance.

"I thought I had been clear on the matter!" Eric replied sharply, surprised John had brought up the matter again at all. "I told you what I think of it and I will not..." he turned around, giving the young mutant a stern glare "...change my mind."

John´s gaze flickered, for a moment taken by insecurity, then again becoming steady. "And I told you what I think." he argued. "This is just what they wanted, see? They will be pleased with what happened. You are no longer a threat to them, so they think the brotherhood has lost its power having lost its head." He had jumped off the counter and was now wildly motioning with his hands. He had practised this speech before, Eric was sure. And he did not ruin it.

"They will never expect us to reform!"

Eric just looked at him, not allowing the young mutant to avert his eyes.

"You do not know what you are talking about, young man. I can only repeat what I told you earlier and I can not even believe it is necessary to explain this to you again. This is not the game of a child!"

Anger suddenly flashed in John´s eyes. "I am no boy any more!"

"Age does not make a man." Eric replied with a mocking smile.

"But you are powerless!" Now the mutant´s voice had reached a point Eric was no longer willing to tolerate. "If we do not react to this new situation, all you have been trying to achieve will be lost!"

"Do... not... think you are able to know what I wanted to achieve!" Eric´s voice was low, but dangerous and the boy was sensing it. For a long, long moment their eyes met, fighting a silent battle. Finally, John looked away, breathing in heavily and then turned around to leave the room.


	4. Encounters

Author´s note:

Oh, first of all, sorry guys, there was a major thing in the last chapter that bothers me and which I unfortunately did oversee before posting it: by the end of the chapter, I somehow slipped into spelling Erik´s name with a "c". Don´t ask me why this happened, as I should be familiar with that name as I am German and here we always do spell it with a "k". So... me being uncapable of changing the document, I hope you won´t mind too much ;-) Here you go for the next chapter.

Oh, two new readers as I see. :-D

Deus X Machina: Just what I thought. I could just keep myself from shouting that aloud in the cinema. Thanks and here you go, another chapter. Hope you enjoy.

Crafty: Well thanks a lot :-D Glad you like it!

Chapter 4:

Encounters 

When the morning came, nothing reminded of the storms that had shaken the night. The rain clouds were gone, just as were the clouds that had hung over the conversations of the two persons staying at the lair. John had carefully avoided Erik´s presence as he noted with a mix of grim satisfaction and complacance. It had been high time, he thought, to tell the boy where he belonged and who was the superior of the two of them. After all it had only taken a short time for Pyro to get into testing his powers against him which made it all the clearer for Erik that people like this young mutant were indeed to be taken seriously... at least when it came to not underestimating their simple-mindedness. For John this was all a game, this was a chance for him to test how strong he was as a mutant, but Erik very early had decided not to get himself involved with this kind of game. He had indeed underestimated the boy´s foolishness, he thought, if his young companion was bound to believe that once Magneto was gone it would be easy for him to take over.

After several days of sunshine, the day promised to be overcast. It was not cool, but still a little windy when Erik put on his elegant, black cloak and hat to leave the lair. He had always liked fine clothing, but now this outfit seemed to painfully remind him of the ordinary man he had become.

"You´re leaving?"

When he lifted his head, the boy was standing a short distance away from him, hands crossed in front of his chest, but apart from that with only a minimum of his self-asserted, cocky appearance of the night before being left. He gave him a short look.

"If you are talking about leaving permanently, I must say you might be disappointed of the answer, as it is no." he replied with a low voice, again giving in to his typical sarcasm. "I have errands to attend to. What about you? Any plans to get the troops back on stage, St. John?" He smiled grimly, not missing out a faint hint of mockery in his voice.

John did not answer, yet he did not return an angry stare, either.

"I was just wondering where you were going." he said instead. "Wondering what would happen now that the brotherhood has split." Something in the way he was saying this did not approve Erik, but he did not pick on it. "I... did not mean to offend, I was just asking myself whether this would be a permanent stay." John added in a manner that made Erik know the boy had been pondering these words since he had seen him prepare to leave.

"What do you want to tell me?" Erik said in a manner that left it open to the young mutant to regard his words as a simple question or as an implied thread underlying his utterance.

"Nothing." The answer came too quick to be ´nothing´. "I was just asking myself whether you would go on living here or move somewhere else, I mean with all...well..."

"With everything around me reminding me of Magneto." he stated. "That´s what you wanted to say, isn´t it?"

John nodded. "I could understand it." he simply said, yet his words made Erik scowl inwardly. There was something more to the younger man´s words. Something underlying... like... a slight nervousness about something Erik was unable to grasp. "I could understand if you wanted to leave." Erik could not help to notion John´s voice was sounding irritated... nervous indeed. Well, he would have to wait and discover the reason for this, he thought. At least for the moment he did not the least feel in the mood to pick on this boy´s little subtleties.

"Well..." he then added. "I think you will have to cope with an old man´s company, St. John as I have no plans whatsoever of looking for a new place to stay." When had he made up his mind, he asked himself. The night before, the thought of staying here had been a much more difficult one to bear. Him staying here and being constantly reminded of what he had lost had troubled him deeply. Now it almost seemed to him that there was no alternative. Not only was he unwilling to leave his former realm to an over-eager youngster, it also appeared to him that any place apart from this one would be a much worse reminder of Magneto´s death.

He turned around and for a moment caught himself in wanting to extend his right hand to open the door without touching the hilt as he had done all his life, but he realized what he was about to do in time and opened the door as every human would have done to step out into the cold morning.

His thoughts, though they had not really gotten any nicer turn towards the recent events, had brightened up a little. The rain was gone which was always a good reason to cast dark thoughts aside. Walking through the streets in the morning almost seemed like a normal thing, yet he was angry with himself of even slipping into any thought of regarding his miserable human state as ´normal´. What had happened to him? Was that occursed ´cure´ already showing a more psychological effect on him? Was whatever had erased his powers when entering his veins now even extinguishing the haughty self of the mutant he had once been? This would mean that soon there might be nothing left of whom he had been proud to be all his life. Erik knew that if this moment ever came he would not be able to bear it.

The streets were not too busy as it was still quite early in the morning. Not of all the shops had opened yet and the peaceful silence which hung over the place was calming and disturbing at the same time. It was a Saturday which meant that while the one half of this city´s population would use the early hours to gain some extra sleep, the others (most of them families) had already left the house and were beginning to fill the streets with bustling life. Soon, Erik knew, peace and silence would be gone. Crowds would fill the city, but crowds also promised anonymity which was no bad thing for someone like him. The glance the mother of that little girl had given him had warned him that he was still someone people might recognize all too easily and as much as his old self stood up against the shame of him having to hide in public, he nonetheless caught himself being glad to have taken his hat with him. An old man with a hat would not cause much suspicion, he thought. Maybe they would not know him and simply let him at peace.

While he thought this, he realized he did not even have a destination. He did not know why he had left the lair nor where he was heading. He had just been following his intuition, his urge to leave those dark walls and wander under the sun again. Even though it was a sun that shone down not on a mutant, but just another ordinary homo sapiens on this earth.

Two hours later he felt tired for a reason he could not even name. He had taken a walk through the same park he had so lonely sat in the day before, searching for something he could not name. Was it hope? Maybe, but hope for what? These were the thoughts of a fool, he told himself as there was nothing he could possibly hope for. He even did not know what to think about. All these years there had been things to plan, to ponder, to evaluate and to rethink, but now... it seemed to him his head had become empty and meaningless with no more thoughts left worthy to occupy his mind.

He then had found an empty table in a small café a little away from the crowds which had increased throughout the morning. The waitress had been one annoying thing, talking in a bored manner that was almost insufferable. But at least she had not cared about whom she had served the cup of coffee. She had not once glanced into his face but kept chewing her chewing gum in an ordinary manner and at the same time shooting glances at some random boy at the other side of the café whom she seemed to fancy. Humans were so ordinary.

And so the morning had passed without anything really happening when Erik Lehnsherr had finally decided to bring this misery to an end and head back to the lair. He had however decided to walk most of the way. At home, noone but an over-anxious and power-greedy young mutant was waiting for him so why hurry to once more listen to his talking? When he was walking along the main street, shoving his way through the crowd, he, however, changed his plans. This place was too busy. Restlessness had gotten the better of him, so he pondered taking one of the taxis that were waiting for customers by the street. He would not drive the whole way, just a short way, a mile maybe, but it would be more than enough to escape the crowds, to feel safe again as much as he hated himself for this cowardice.

He had just lifted his head enough to scan the people around him. Some family with two younger kids, the boy an insufferable ordinary human brat annoying his mother because he wanted yet another ice cream, the girl a sweet but equally ordinary child, well-behaved, a perfect example for those who ´fit´ into this absurd society. Some young adults hurrying towards a bus stop, university students maybe, shouting and laughing as they ran. A man with a mobile pressed to his ear and a briefcase pressed to his chest, talking hastily while walking. Them... and dozens and dozens more.

He raised his right hand and one of the taxis reacted to it immediately, the vehicle leaving its parking place and driving towards him. It was a weird feeling to get into the car, knowing he was that powerless... on the other hand the driver was just another human who did not impose a threat to him... no more.

He opened the back door of the car. Behind him, as he recognized absend mindedly he thought to hear someone run into his direction quickly. For some reason this caused him to be uneasy. Without looking around anymore, he climbed in and shut the door quickly. The driver did not even turn his head, but looked at him through the driving mirror.

"Where is the journey supposed to go?" he asked good-natured. Erik told it to him and kept his eyes low, his eyes hidden in the hat´s shadow. The man shrugged his shoulders; obviously he had understood his customer was not in the mood for a conversation. Erik heaved a sigh and leant his had against the head rest of the back seat. Suddenly he wanted nothing but to close his eyes, but when he tilted his head to the sight, looking out of the window, his mind zapped alert again. In the matter of a split second he had the feeling his heart was racing for there had indeed been someone who had followed him. This very person had tried to reach him for whatever reasons he did not dare to think about, but she had been too late. The taxi was already on the move when their eyes met. He knew those eyes well, yet they were now so utterly strange to him. No longer like a reptiles, yellow, mysterious... beautiful... but dark as her hair was now which had once been like fire. Mystique. No, Raven, he told himself as their eyes locked for a moment, emotions, thoughts racing through his mind. He did not know what to think or what he would have said, had she gotten hold of him in time. He only knew for some reason that he was glad of him being inside this taxi and herself outside, for there was something in her eyes which he had never seen there when she had looked at him. And whatever it was, it made him shiver.


	5. Old friends and new foes

AUTHOR´S NOTE:

Okay guys, new chapter is up. I had a little of a writer´s block but I think it has turned out okay now. Hope you like it... :-)

Deus X Machina: Yup, Mystique. I bet you´ll like this chapter then. ;-)

Midget 101: Uhm... yeah, just about what I wanted to say. I understood this line just like EEEEEEEEEEE explained it. He means to show his (and Pyro´s ) superiority as mutants compared to humans.

EEEEEEEEEEE: Interesting nick ;-) Hope I got all Es. Thanks for your review:-D

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CHAPTER 5

OLD FRIENDS AND NEW FOES

"Erik?"

He turned around to face his old friend. Charles Xavier had not left his place behind the desk, but the look in his eyes was warm, yet full of worry. Erik said nothing.

"You know there is hope." the man in the wheelchair said calmly. "I know there is."

Erik smiled sadly, his mimic telling his emotions lies. "No." he said. "No." He was sure Charles was trying to understand what made him leave. They had met as young men and had been friends ever since. They had talked many hours and Charles had been the only one who knew Erik´s whole story... the dark parts included. What had happened in the camps long ago noone knew, but Charles. Yet there were things only one who had lived through all this could understand.

"I know you hate them" Charles said and finally wheeled round the desk towards them. "And I also know you wish it could be different. It will be different one day, Erik. One day we will be accepted. I need your help for this."

"Accepted..." the word sounded like mockery even from his own lips. "I have seen what humans can do, felt what they are capable of. Today they call us ´different´, but tomorrow..." he did not speak on, as both of them knew what he had intended to say. His past lay heavy on him ... ´and it always will.´ The last words had not been his own thoughts, he realized.

"Charles." He put one finger to his temple. "You will find nothing useful here and I ask you not to continue this search."

"I´m sorry." the telepath said. It had been an agreement on both sides. They were friends, they accepted each other and this also implied not using their powers against each other. Lately however, as they had both grown to know they had become more distant, their ideas and aims separated, it had been harder to stick to this rule.

Erik said no more, but just rested his hand on his friend´s shoulder for a moment, both of them silent and then turned to leave.

"Erik!" He would not have been Charles, had he simply let him go. Erik stopped, but did not turn around. He did not want his old friend to see he was struggling with himself, struggling, fighting his inner voices who told them to leave… or to stay.

"You know this place has an open door for mutants. You know I always have an open ear for you."

He nodded. "I know." he said, his voice echoing strangely in the corridor. "But THEY don´t, Charles, and this is what counts." He walked on. "You will remember my words one day, old friend." The day was close when an open door and an open ear would no longer be enough. Soon they would have to fight.

"Erik." He did not stop, but Charles went on. "It is not fair to let this generation pay for the faults of generations passed. They will not repeat their mistakes."

Now he did stop and when he turned around his voice sounded bitter. "Tell me." he said "is it fair to let children pay for the sick ideas of murderers? Could you tell a mutant child that the children who laugh about it at school are not to blame for their insults and rudeness, because they are only imitating the habits of their parents?"

Charles said nothing more and Erik had to keep himself from hurrying towards the exit. Not because of weakness, not because of fear that made him want to leave early, but... he had the intense feeling that his old friend had some quite good points... and that lingering meant the temptation to stay... to believe in the naive hope of Charles Xavier which he so much desired to be able to feel, too. He had often wished to share this man´s enthusiam and spirit when it came to mutant affairs, instead of constantly being tortured by the thoughts of much less pleasant ways of things to turn out. Maybe... maybe Charles would prove right in the end he thought when he put on his hat. He hoped so. He hoped it so much, but deep inside him the thought of a world where mutants were oppressed and treated like second class beings had already taken hold too deeply to remain unnoticed. He needed time, he told himself. Time to think things over. Time to balance the pros and cons, the risks and benefits. He did not want their friendship to end and hoped there would be an alternative from the two of them standing on different sides of the road. The decision would not be easy, he knew. He would take a retreat for some time and think.

However, this day had something gloomy and portentous about it. As Erik Lehnsherr walked along the street he did not yet know that his decision would be a short one. A very short one indeed, triggered by the only person of whom, in later years, he would think as the one person who had ever truly captured Magneto´s intentions.

It was a warm day. Summer was approaching in these early days of June and the sun was shining from a nearly cloudless sky. A day which made the world look like a happy place although it wasn´t. Maybe, Erik thought, it would be one day. A place were humans and mutants could peacefully co-exist, as Charles liked to call it. He almost snorted at the idea, yet he found it tempting, although nearly too good and naive to be true. Future would tell.

It was almost noon when he reached one of the nicest parts of the city. Small homes of well-off families to both sides of the streets, well-kept lawns and the barking of a dog here and there. White fences and a handful of kids´ toys and small bikes idly left on the pavements that led to friendly looking front doors. To him, areas like that always seemed a little too artificial, but maybe this was just because he had never known an idyll like this.

There was a school close-by and as he walked on he heard the bell ring and after a minute or two a crowd of kids and young teens dashed out of the gates and onto the road on their way home. He did not pay much attention to them being involved with his own thoughts. Giving in to his own idle thinking he sat down on the nearest bench and tilted back his head to let the sun shine on his face. For a moment he let himself carry away by the warmth on his skin and almost forgot about his inner conflict. The last few days had been consumed with little else than that.

Still, this moment of peace and silence did not last long. To his annoyance voices suddenly ripped him from his half sleep he had drifted into, making his eyes flutter open. There had been some children running past him, three boys and another kid whose face he could not see as he or she was wearing a jacket with a hood and had the hood drawn into the face. Normally this would not have evoked his attention. Kids were like this, running around, shouting, being a nuisance at times. Yet something told him that what was going on here was not a game... something told him what was about to happen was damn serious.

The kids had gathered around in a distance of about 100 metres from the bench where he was. There was a bus stop where they were with a small shelter. The figure with the hood over the face had backed away from the other three. The child was out of its breath, obviously those boys had been following her and tracked it down by now. Erik looked over to them and scowled slightly. The kids did not even seem to have noticed him. One of the boys laughed and the laughter sounded cruel to Erik´s ears. He knew this sort of laughter. It did not mean joy, it meant pure amusement a person got from torturing another.

"Hey, freak!" another of the boys shouted, kicking an empty coke can which was lying on the floor. He kicked it hard and it hit the leg of the kid in disguise. It could not have hurt too much, Erik thought, but he knew there were worse things than physical pain.

"I´m talking to you!" the boy said in a threatening voice when his victim did not answer. He stepped closer. "I. am. Talking to you, scum!" Again he got no reply. The figure under the hood just flinched when one of the boys kicked at it. The foot did not hit, but the child raised its hands in defense and Erik could see the child was wearing gloves. Gloves in summer.

"Didn´t I tell you you don´t belong here, freak?" the boy who had been talking all the time, shouted. He seemed to be the boss of their little gang. "Didn´t I tell you it ain´t no good idea to show up again here?" He jumped forward and brutally grabbed the kid by the collar. Erik stirred.

"Hey, let her" one of his buddies said half heartedly, but he too was muffling a laughter and grinning wildly. "She´s not worth it, the scum she is." His friend laughed sharply and let the collar go. The small figure of the child shrank against the wall and from what Erik could see from the distance the kid might have been sobbing.

"We told you this is a clean area, scum!" the third boy now fell in. "We don´t want any mutants here." When he lifted his foot to kick the helpless cowering figure Erik had seen enough. He was on his feet in an instant. Before the boy´s kick could show any effect he raised his right hand. Stupid boy, he thought, always so after the lastest fashion. He could clearly sense the ears of the bootlaces from the boy´s shoes were metallic. Within a second or less the boy screamed when his boot was suddenly jerked upwards and in an instant he was lying flat on his back. Another wave from Magneto´s hand and the empty coke can these young roughnecks had used to bully the kid had been turned against them. Like a ping pong ball it rose into the air and then swiftly bounced between the heads of the two boys still standing till they fell, too. More from surprise and shock than pain but the trick had shown its desired effect. They wildly looked around for the one who was behind the attack and seeing him approach they quickly got to their feet, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Who do you call scum?" Erik asked, his eyes cold, his voice low, enough for the young rebels to realise he was too dangerous for them to mess with him. They only stared and stayed silent. He lifted his hand and the coke can lifted from the ground where it had fallen and flew right into his outstretched hand. "I think this belongs to one of you." he said, his voice still dangerously low. The boys gaped in shock, realising how things had gone wrong and after one of them, the boy with the metal bootlace ears, had grabbed his two buddies by their arms, they spun around and fled. Erik did not follow them. They were not worth it, he thought. Just another proof for the fact that the image of a superior homo sapiens was a mistake – a fatal mistake.

He remained standing there for a few seconds and then turned his head to look at the small, hooded shape which was still cowering on the ground. He could not make out a face, let alone distinct features. The child had its gaze lowered as in shame, yet, when he turned his eyes to look, he knew the kid had been watching him with curiosity. When he looked it quickly avoided his gaze, yet it was clear the child had been looking, as he got a short glimpse of a shy pair of eyes. They were yellow. He smiled.

Erik Lehnsherr turned towards the child, walked a few steps and then lowered down to cower opposit of the kid. He looked to the right, to the direction the cowardy tormentors had left to give the child the oportunity to shoot another glance at him and to take away the feeling of being threatened.

"They are gone" he then said in a soft voice. "They will not come back to tease you." The child said nothing and kept the gaze low, yet he could get a glimpse of the face that was hidden under the hood now. No ordinary human face, but a face that was... blue. He smiled again and looked at her.

"Why were they teasing you?" he asked gently although he knew the answer.

For a moment there was silence between them, then the child spoke for the first time. "They were calling me a freak. They always do." The voice of a girl, unmistakably, yet it was fuller, more resonant, almost like two speaking at the same time.

"A freak, hm? Oh, I´m sure you are nothing like that. They are just stupid boys who know nothing." He folded his hands. "Why do you hide your face?" he then said, his voice still gently. "You should not have to hide it." He reached for the hood carefully, intent on trying to sense whether the girl would show resistance, but she didn´t. Softly he pulled the hood back.

The girl was about 12 or 13 he guessed, yet it was a little bit hard to tell her age as she had blue skin and not even smooth skin like a human, but a skin patterned with darker scales around her eyes, down her cheeks and on her forehead, forming a mysterious and fascinating pattern. Her hair was red as fire and reached down onto her shoulders and her eyes, as he had seen correctly, were yellow as a reptile´s.

"Why would anyone call a being as unique as you are one a freak? They would be stupid indeed." he said, smiling. He felt his heart ache when he saw the girl´s eyes were wet from crying and at the same time he felt anger. This was just what he had tried to make Charles understand again and again. It was happening everywhere and even kids participated in this modern witch hunt. Mutants were treated badly, were discriminated against and those with a visible mutation had the hardest lives. He felt utter pity for this girl and suddenly knew he had decided. Charles was wrong and had always been wrong.

"You are... a mutant, too." she said, her eyes curious again now that she had understood he was no threat. He reached out with his hand and the coke can flew towards him, hovering a few inches away from his palm, quickly forming into a little metal ball. He caught the ball, looked at it and smiled. "Yes, I am" he said. "Just as you. You should be proud of what you are, not ashamed. What´s your name?"

She looked at him and scowled, thinking. "Raven..." she then said after a short hesitation. "...I think."

"You think?" he gave back. "What do you parents call you?"

He knew instantly that this had been a bad question when she looked away and new tears came to her eyes. At once he felt anger rising inside him. Another one of those poor creatures, he thought. Another child being abandoned by its own parents for being a mutant.

"Come." he said and reached out his hand. This, he told himself, would be the last mutant child to cry over her existence. And after a short hesitation, the girl reached for her gloves, put them off and put her own, small blue hand in his.

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"Sir?... Sir?"

The taxi-driver´s voice startled him. Erik had been so deep in thought that he had not even heard it. Memories had kept his mind occupied over the last few minutes, memories that were almost 20 years old by now. He flinched a little.

"We´ve arrived". The taxi driver was looking at him, scowling. "Are you all right Sir?" he asked irritated.

"No... yes, I am fine, thank you" Erik said and looked around. Then he paid the driver and climbed out of the taxi. Rain clouds had begun to cover the sky, it was time to head home he thought. Home. A word like home sounded strange to his own ears. He knew he would not find the peace he desired at the lair. Only memories. Memories of his old life and his old friend. The girl with the hood.


	6. Testing powers

**Author´s note:**

I know updating was faster before, but I´m sorry, the last days have been rather busy so... you had to wait a little. However, here´s a new chapter for you guys, one which you will hopefully like.

**Deus X Machina:** Thanks again. :-) Some more Mystique for you, although not much. Another tiny flashback.

**Eraina:** Wow, thanks a lot for this very nice review. I will try to keep up with your expectations. :-) No, to be true I normally don´t write on the whim of reviewers... but still, it might happen that my ideas of the story share similarities with what readers want to read. ;-) So, maybe this is the case. Nice to hear you like my portrayal of Magneto. Writing his dialogues is not always easy, but I try to imagine Ian McKellen performing them as Magneto and sometimes it helps. If they sound good like that, they hopefully work in the story as well.

Okay, enough said, another chappy for you guys. I hope I´m doing okay language-wise. I´m not a native English speaker, so please forgive me, if there are any stupid mistakes or things of the like... As for now: Enjoy!

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**CHAPTER 6**

**TESTING POWERS**

The rest of the day had been more than dull. Erik knew perfectly well, he was trying to distract himself from thinking about what had happened that morning and he knew just as well that this attempt had failed miserably. He had pretty soon found, there was almost nothing for him to do... but the days growing longer and longer was one thing... being tortured by memories was another.

_"Good" he shouted encouraging as the girl completed another perfect sequence of movements. She had brilliant reflexes and in so short a time nothing had remained of the shy, lonely girl he had found. Erik smiled and she returned his smile, blocking his attack with ease, flipping over with the speed of a wildcat. He was too slow, suddenly found her behind him and in the next second Erik was flat on his back. She laughed triumphantly, while he got to his feet. "Excellent" he said, rolling down his sleeves. "You learn quickly. I wish I had your reflexes."_

_He could tell this remark made her more proud than anything. Had her skin not been blue, he was pretty sure she would have blushed at the compliment. "I have a good teacher" she replied simply, her voice as unique as always. _

_She had told him she had never taken lessons in martial arts before and Erik was about to assume that her reflexes were part of her mutation if not its primary trait. However, he could not yet figure out what the girl´s true mutation was. If it was just that, fine, he thought. He could need a fighter like her. A little more training and no gunman in his right senses would be a proper match for her. She was only 14 – he had been mistaken in guessing her to be a little younger – but she fought with the fierceness of a warrior and the grace of a panther. _

_"Enough for today" he announced and was about to leave the training room. As always, she seemed disappointed. "More of it tomorrow" he said and chuckled. "You´re getting better, my dear, better than I am."_

_She followed him. "No." she said. "You have real power. You can_ do _things. All I can do is..." He turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. "...fight."_

_"You fight better than any homo sapiens I have ever seen." Erik said in a low voice. He sighed. "I know it is hard for you to deal with all this. Being a mutant is never easy especially when one is still young." He knew what he was talking about and was glad she didn´t. _

_"But my mutation is so..."_

_"So what?" he smiled ironically. _

_"Useless." She shrugged her shoulders. "I´m just a weird girl with blue skin and... well, nothing really cool or powerful."_

_Erik shook his head. "Don´t say things like that!" he said sternly. "You are not useless... neither are you..." the word seemed ridiculous to him. "...weird. Those who tell you different, know nothing."_

When the front door was shut with a bang, Erik looked up from the book he had been reading... or holding rather, for he had not flipped a page in minutes. He could hear footsteps on the corridor, footsteps of a certain someone who obviously thought to have the lair to himself... for Pyro had not come alone.

"You sure he ain´t here?" Another voice Erik had never heard before, the voice of a boy around John´s own age, he guessed. The stranger was speaking hushed as if he did not trust the peace.

"Yeah! I told you so, didn´t I?" John replied, his voice normal volume or a little above to demonstrate his self-confidence. "I know him. He won´t be home for another few couples of hours."

The other seemed not persuaded, but kept silent.

"Creepy place." A third voice, more footsteps. The new voice had been a girl´s.

"Nobody made you come." That was John, sounding determined. "Don´t be such as sissy!"

"I´m no sissy!" The girl, who had spoken hushed, too, was now obviously angry. Seemingly John had been teasing her for quite a time. "I´m just saying that if... well, you know what I want to say, if he´s here and...this is his place after all. Wouldn´t he be angry you had brought us here? Telling away his secret... lair and ev´rythin´ ?"

While they had been talking, Erik had gotten up and walked over to the door. When he silently walked around the corner he could see them. Two teenagers, unknown to him but teenagers by their size and voices as he could not see their faces them having turned their back on him. The girl had long black hair, the boy´s hair was a very bright blonde.

When the girl uttered her doubts, Erik crossed his arms in front of his chest and said: "Well, in that case I might want to have a word with my young and eager friend St. John."

All three of them jumped and he noticed with grim satisfaction that he had startled them horribly. The two kids turned around slowly, too scared to look, as it seemed and John looked up, only now noticing him, his face flashing from shock to something that was hard to tell. Decidedness?

"At least" Erik continued in a manner as if nothing was wrong at all "I would expect him to introduce his new friends to me. Out of respect."

John gave him a long look, looked him straight into the eyes... something, as Erik realised, he had never dared to this moment.

"Or is there anything wrong with this, my young friend?" He asked, raising a single eyebrow but apart from that, not moving a single muscle in his face. He could see the two strangers were highly irritated. The girl looked as if she was about to run. John had told them what had happened to him on Alcatraz, no doubt, for otherwise those two kids would never have dared to go to Magneto´s lair just because a cocky young mutant invited them, to. Those young people, Erik thought. No manners.

"I would like a word with you, St. John." he said, giving the other two no other look and turned around to enter his study again. For a short moment there was dead silence on the corridor, then Erik could hear footsteps. They sounded angry... the footsteps of a petulant child.

"Close the door." he simply said, not giving any attention to the anger that was obvious in the young mutant´s eyes. Erik had humiliated him in front of those two insecure little mutant kids out there, it was obvious from the way he was staring at Erik.

When John had reluctantly obeyed, slamming the door shut rather than closing it – another outburst he ignored. – Erik sat down behind his desk, putting his fingertips together.

"So." he began in a casual voice. "Are there any plans I should know of?"

"I don´t know what you are talking about." The way in which the boy he said this, as well as the choice of words did not fit with the old Pyro... this was no longer the sleezy, obedient boy. This was a mutant who was testing his powers... testing them against a human. A fight he could only win.

"I do not mean to sound rude, John" he continued, indicating by leaving out the St. that he, too, was in a dangerous mood. "but if you have intentions I do not know of, like this little assembly... let me tell you that I will not suffer this."

John curved a smile. "I was just bringing some friends along, so where´s the problem?"

"Both of us know this is not everything", Eric gave back. "I will not tell you again what I told you about the brotherhood, John. It does no longer exist."

Angrily, John did some steps forward and hammered his hand on the heavy desk. Erik did not flinch. The boy was angry, he could tell. Angry and dangerous.

"Things have changed!" Pyro roared. "If it is not me, bringing things on, who then?" Clearly, he was desperately looking for words and got even angrier not finding the right ones to serve his needs. "I... don´t want to wait and see what happens to mutants. I still have my powers, Erik!"

The last word had been loud and full of mockery. It hurt him to hear it from this insolent boy and in this moment, unable to control his uprising anger, he swiftly rose from his chair, bringing his eyes on level with John´s.

"You. Are. Forgetting your place, St. John!" he said dangerously and for a moment the youngster seemed to shrink back. Then the slight fear in his eyes turned to something like a mix of anger, disbelief and disgust. "So are you." he said slyly.

There was a long moment of silence that passed between them, standing on opposite sides of the desk, staring into each others´ eyes, John´s anger open and wild, Eric´s half concealed. Both, the mutant and the human testing their powers. A struggle which, as Erik suddenly realized, had begun the day before and had now found its climax. John playing around with his lighter, John igniting the flame while Erik was watching the storm, making sure the man who had once been Magneto saw that he was still in full command of the ability which made him superior of ordinary humans as Erik himself had told him several times. The boy had become a danger and Erik had known it.

Suddenly Pyro broke their eye contact. Once more he angrily slammed his palms onto the desk and Erik was not sure whether this was another attempt of demonstrating his determination or just the behaviour of an angry kid whose parents had just forbidden him to see friends that were no good for him. Then the young mutant swung around, quickly paced over to the heavy metal door and opened it quickly. And suddenly Erik knew, Pyro had crossed a line.

He straightened. "Did I allow you to end this conversation?" he thundered and raised his hand. He was angry, he had not felt this kind of anger for quite some time although this might have surprised his enemies, had they known this. Erik had always been convinced he was doing the right thing, trying to make life better for mutants, anger had been an emotion that had been unnecessary for the most part. He had hidden it well, as anger tended to make oneself unfocussed. But enough was enough. Magneto had always had a weak spot and in this moment Erik Lehnsherr had to discover that he possessed it, too. He could suffer anyone trying to threaten his authority in such as way!

As he raised his hand, things suddenly happened to quick to recall. Later, he could not tell how it all happened, but he knew Pyro´s behaviour had been the trigger. More from instinct, as life long behaviour was not to be erased in a matter of days, he waved his hand in anger, pointing it at the door and in the same moment gave a muffled scream of pain. It was a feeling as if his nerves were on fire, being struck by a mighty bolt of lightning or something he could barely name as the pain immediately dulled all of his senses. His knees gave way and he felt his legs were not carrying him any longer and he was about to fall. Out of reflex he grabbed for the rim of his desk, got hold of it and somehow managed to stop himself from sliding to the ground when, a split second after this horrible pain had shot through him, he realized it was already gone, leaving behind only a fading phantom of agony. But this was not the only thing happening. He had waved his hand and something that had slumbered inside him, slumbered but was not dead, he suddenly knew, had been ripped to painful life. The metal door, against all odds and all rules of gravity whatsoever, shut with a bang. Erik gasped.

All he could do was stare. Stare at the door, then stare at his hand, watching absent-mindedly from the corner of his eye the deep shock in John´s face. For a second or two, the boy stood there, transfixed, unable to move, then he opened the door hastily and ran out. With some effort, Erik sat down on his chair, heaving a heavy breath, knees still shaking, his heart pounding. He moved his fingers and suddenly felt terribly weak and effeted. But still, a smile curved his lips.


	7. The invisible spy

_Author´s note:_

Hey folks, sorry for the delay. But here you go, another chappy for you. Not too much will happen here, it´s rather somewhat of a... uhm... let me call it.. bridging chapter. Some more action to come in chapter 8. Still I hope you enjoy it.

**PsychoSpiff:** Thanks a lot. :-) So, hope you like the new chapter

**Meow:** Please don´t be disturbed for cheering, for if you are, I should feel disturbed, too. ;-) I already got some weird glances for sobbing over poor Erik lying on the ground realizing what had happened.

**2wingo:** You bet I feel honoured (beams). I have never read the comics and base my interpretation of Magneto on nothing else but Ian McKellen´s performance, so maybe he too, should feel honoured to capture this character so well. Really glad to hear you like the story. :-D And thanks for the hint.

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_**Chapter 7**_

_**The invisible spy**_

The pain had been fierce but short and still Erik had the impression it was still detectable seconds after it was gone. An agony like a bolt of lightning, racing through his nerval system from his brain down into his extended arm, splitting his vision in two. And following that, a strange feeling of numbness which, although fading quickly, seemed to remain longer than it actually did. Still, these unpleasant aftereffects of the pain that had brought him down, could not wipe the smile from his face. Still breathing heavily and almost absent mindedly noticing he had bruised his left elbow at the attempt of trying to stop his fall, Erik remained sitting in his chair for another moment, trying not to shake all over, a slight chuckle forming in the back of his throat.

It was hard to tell what he was feeling while the seconds flew by, it was almost impossible to answer this question, even to himself. There was something that was unmistakably triumph and a feeling of fierce joy, but there was more... a feeling that had been unfamiliar to him, as his life had not held much of it for him: was it happiness?

While still looking at his right hand, moving his fingers gently to test whether the pain had caused any damage, his smile widened until at least it formed into something so untypical for Erik Lehnsherr that if anyone would have heard it, he or she would either have stared in disbelief or have turned and fled: he laughed. It sounded unfamiliar to him, yet it felt like the best thing he had experienced and felt in a time longer than he could tell. He tilted back his head and laughed – no laughter that might have suited the evil snickering of a villain he had been to many humans... and mutants, but a laughter that was nothing more than that. Magneto had not been killed, he mused with a smile. The cure had been no match for him, it had only silenced him for a while.

For the moment, thinking about why it had happened this way was too hard and difficult to think about. He felt weak, for although he now knew that he had found his powers again, he was not a fool. He had experienced that the outburst caused be Pyro´s rage had cost him a lot of energy. More energy in fact that he had ever had to put into manipulating metal. With the exception of setting his transformation machine in motion, manipulating metal had always been as natural to him as breathing. Only when there had been a greater amount of power required, things had wearied him, but never instantly. He had been strong... he had grown stronger over the years. The cure had had an effect on him, he was sure about that, having felt it work through his inner cells, so it was only normal things would need their time to recover.

When he felt a little less weak, his gaze fell upon the biro which was lying on his desk before him and, reaching for it with his left hand, concentrating hard for a moment, he managed to pull it a little bit closer to himself. It cost him some strength and small drops of sweat started to form on his forehead until he managed to set the little object in motion, but on the other hand it would have surprised him, had it been any different. What he had done with the door had been stress set free, an outburst of mutant abilities the like it sometimes appeared when mutant powers showed for the very first time, setting a young mutant apart from an ordinary homo sapiens. It was easy to explain: mutant abilities often showed under emotional stress or in tense situations. It had been similar once... on that very day... when the rain had been falling heavily and the ground had been soaked... when the soroundings had been dull and grey and when he had seen his parents being taken away and out of his reach. It had been similar then... without knowing what he was doing he had reached for them with his hands... until first the barbwire and then the gate itself had answered to his call... had twisted to the irritation and horror of the guards.

Letting the biro at peace he closed his eyes and leant back, giving a small sigh, which, differently to the sighs that had accompanied him these days, was one of pure content and weariness, not of sorrow and self pity. While he carefully rubbed his temples with his fingertips, several scenes of the previous days suddenly appeared to him in a completely different light. And not only this: all of a sudden he realized and opened his eyes again, John´s behaviour made perfect sense. The young mutant had known that Magneto was about to recover... he had seen and interpreted the signs, Erik had failed to see. Suddenly the young mutant´s suspicious glare made sense... as made the latent fear in the boy´s eyes, the fact that he had not yet totally played on his dominance about the homo sapiens Erik Lehnsherr and his cocky game of playing around with flames in Erik´s presence. John had been testing and demonstrating his powers in order to tell the old man Magneto had become where his new place was... fearing the old man could only too soon find out that he had only been put out of action for a while, his powers still lingering somewhere to be re-discovered and put to use.

John had seen the signs... the biro Erik had pushed off the desk when John had been standing in the door frame and which he, Erik had thought to have knocked down with his hand while half asleep... the fridge door, trembling slightly before Erik had opened it on that stormy night... now he realized it had not trembled from thunder...the young mutant´s transfixed stare when Erik had accidentally tried to open the front door with his powers... John had seen all of this... he had been aware... and in constant fear, he guessed. So this was another reason why the boy might have brought along those two kids... John wanted his own troop. He was no natural born leader – Erik had known right from their first encounter he was rather one of those dull creatures to follow those who told them the right words in the right way and with the right amount of conviction – but still the call of power had had its effect on John. Pyro had tried to exercise his power, to gain strength and backing, before Erik found out he was not the weak old human he had thought to have become... and maybe John had even hoped Erik would never find out. Well, Erik mused with the hint of a smile, if this had been the case, St. John had initiated his own downfall.

When he got up, he still was a little weak on his legs, but he adjusted his manner in a way his weariness did not show. He was too excited about what had happened to feel tired, even though the pain he had felt when slamming the door shut had felt like being ripped apart. Still... somehow, he thought, this pain had been freeing... the pain of being... reborn.

Although he yearned to, he did not open the door with his powers. He knew he would need time and practice to recover his full strength and as anyway it would not be detectable from the outside how exactly the door was opened, it did not matter at all.

As he had expected, the corridor was empty when he entered it. Pyro had bolted off in an instant and his new friends had followed him. At least he thought so, until he caught a slight movement from the corners of his eyes. He did not turn, he did not indicate he had seen her... it was the girl that had been with Pyro, carefully hiding behind a corner, close to the main door. She was quick, her reflexes swift, but not swift enough for Eric´s keen eyes to be overlooked. When she saw him approach, obviously thinking Eric had not spotted her yet, she disappeared. In an instant, she was gone, but not by pulling back her head or running of. She just faded, her body becoming clear... invisible. Another interesting mutancy, Erik thought, smiling grimly but hiding his smile so the girl wouldn´t see it. Pyro was not as dumb as he had thought and yet much too risky to leave the girl behind to spy. Erik had to admit he did not feel all to comfortable knowing, St. John had left someone to spy. Yet, his uneasyness soon proved baseless. When he walked past the place where he knew she was still standing, holding her breath, he realized contently that Magneto had indeed returned. Although his powers still might need some trainging to be ready for proper use, his senses had regained their life long alertness. The girl would be no danger to him. He could sense the metal she was wearing. Metall on the buckle of her belt and a pendant on a chain around her neck. She would not be able to approach him without him knowing, he thought. And with some disappointment he noted that he had thought Pyro to be smarter.


	8. Shade

_Author´s note:_

Bad me... I kept you waiting again. So, here you go, another chapter which is not too long this time, but get ready for things to begin in particular in chapter 9.

**2wingo:** Never mind, you did not come across as an "arrogant prick" I appreciated your review very much!

**Gatermate**: Could you picture Erik without Mystique for the whole story? Hm... neither could I. ;-) Just wait and see.

**Meow:** Oh... thanks. I was thinking about this one. The word just didn´t seem right to me but I couldn´t tell where exactly the mistake was, so thanks.

**PsychoSpiff:** lol. You say it.

Okay, that´s all the yadda yadda for now. Enjoy and drop a line for me. :-)

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**Chapter 8**

**Shade**

He had felt the presence of the girl all day and thus kept himself from trying to test and train his powers. Without any doubt the girl had been left on John´s orders and was supposed to at some point return to the leader of their miserable rebel group to report on what Eric was doing. Therefore he kept his will at bay, although he yearned to test his mind and powers on the next piece of metal near his reach. No. It was maybe better to put John on a wrong track – make him believe that although Magneto´s powers had returned... or rather recovered... the older man was incapable of getting them back to proper use. Tricks had always been his own realm. Trying to train and test the strength of his powers right there and then with the girl watching him as he knew would have meant running into an open trap. Erik did not think that once his powers had strengthened again, Pyro would be a threat to him, but for the moment he had to be reasonable. Slamming the door shut and moving the pen had cost him strength. He would need his time. And he would wait patiently for his hour to come again. Pyro was just another annoyance of these days.

Therefore he pretended not to try anything to test his powers again. Instead he walked over to the kitchen to have something to eat and then retired to his chambers to have a nap. The girl did not follow him, but stayed somewhere on the corridor, but Eric was sure she´d keep roaming around and he was right. After some hours of sleep he returned to his study and felt the present of the metal she wore. Although she was invisible he could tell where she was. His senses had become even more alert to metal which filled him with great excitement and a mischief that was unusual for him. Yet, he did not show it. He forced himself to touch the chair and move it and he forced himself to reach and grab for things he needed instead of just trying to call on them.

He kept the next one or two hours skipping through the things in his desk. Quite a huge pile of paper had accumulated in the various drawers over the years. Plans and any sorts of documents and maps that had aided him on his operations. He was so busy going through all of them, not being entirely sure of the sense and meaning of his doing, being totally occupied with thoughts, that he soon forgot about the girl´s presence. Or... not forgot about her but found it did not matter she saw what he was doing as long as she did not get a glimpse of his powers.

After about another hour of work his desk looked somewhat messy. Or rather... messier than he liked it to be. He had tried to bring new order into the heap of information. Many of those he would now no longer need. Whole boxes with files containing information about mutants that had seemed good candidates for his brotherhood. Mostly younger people, bitter, angry, social misfits created by a cruel society who were ready to use their anger on his account. Use it for Magneto´s cause. Those files needed updating, he thought sarcastically. Some were dead... not few as he noted, and some... He broke off the thought as he skipped through the files and got a glimpse of someone whom he had known so well. Quickly he skipped and turned the card of the woman who had once been Mystique and was now Raven Darkholme. He then put the box aside, got up and walked towards a shelf about three metres across the room. Standing in front of the row of books he could suddenly sense something. The girl, who had been somewhere near desk all the time, most obviously bored, had moved her position. She did not make a sound when she moved towards the desk, all he could rely on was his feeling for the position of the metal on her clothes and around her neck. She was approaching, getting closer and, still facing the bookshelf he could hear the slightest sound of paper being turned. He scowled. He had been intent on playing this game, but this was enough. He concentrated hard, as he did not know how much power it would cost him and found that what strength was left was enough for his purposes. He did not mean to harm this young thing, but she definitely needed a fillip.

He focussed on the chain around her neck and for the first time heard the girl´s voice when she gasped in fear as the chain suddenly tightened. He did not turn as he did not want her to see the sweat drops form on his forehead.

"Well, well." he said in a voice that was deep and friendly but yet full of sarcasm. "You are one nosy young lady, aren´t you?" She coughed slightly and began to totter backwards. "I would not do that if I were you." Erik continued. "I can tighten that pretty necklace even more any time." He now felt that it was no longer a risk to turn around, although the exercise was already beginning to weary him. "If two people meet it is indeed disrespectful to hide from one another, don´t you think?" he said, looking into the direction where he thought she was standing. "Now stop this masquerade, will you, my dear?" It was no question, but an order and to emphazise he was serious he fastened his grip on the chain. She choked slightly and Erik felt bad about doing this. It should not be necessary for mutants to group against each other. They would need all their combined efforts to achieve their aims.

Another second or two passed in which he did not tighten the chain any more as he felt it would not be necessary. Then, out of thin air, formed the shape of the girl who he had shortly spotted in the corridor with Pyro and the other youngster earlier that day.

Her black hair, as he had already seen before, was long anough to fall down to her shoulderblades, but she had bound it back into a ponytail. She was about 15 or 16 years old, he guessed, slender and tall, but she had something hasty about her, like a deer in the headlights. Her green eyes were eying him with a fear she had giving up on hiding.

"So this rather looks like a basis for a talk, doesn´t it?" Erik said, released his grip on the necklace and sat down on his chair behind the desk. "I should be angry indeed for you sneaking inside my house, hiding, spying on me, which is surely not the nice way of treating people." She was just staring and he could tell had she not been petrified with fear, she would have been off in an instant. He would not have been able to stop her, his heart poundering painfully from the efforts he had needed to pretend he was stronger than he was. Had she run away, he would not have been able to stop her. But the bluff worked.

"So, St. John left you here to spy, I guess." He said, ignoring the scared flicker in the young one´s eyes. "How do they call you?"

She opened her mouth and closed it twice, before she found the voice to answer.

"Shade."

"Hm..." he gave back.

It was strange. Mystique had not been much younger when they had first met, when she had joined his brotherhood being the first of its members. There was something about this girl that reminded him of his companion years and years ago, although their outer appearance was so different. Yet, he could not help the image of Mystique when the cure had stricken her down, looking at him desperately with this plea in her eyes. Her dark eyes, her black hair, as black as the girl´s falling across her face. New bitterness filled him.

"Shade, then." He said, his voice sounding cooler than before. "I suggest you better run off now. St. John has always been to hasty with his judgings. Tell him so." He pointed at the door with his head, his eyes now glowing forcefully. The girl gave him another look which was now suddenly not just pure panic, but more. Anger. Yes, she was furious for the fact her trick had not worked and he could tell she did not figure out how this had happened. He did not give in to it, but before she left he said: "Tell John not to make this mistake again. It would be for no one´s benefit."

While he said so, he began to feel utterly weary. He was panting slightly, sweat forming on his forehead again. He needed rest, he thought. He needed time. The rebirth of Magneto did not happen within a few moments. He shortly closed his eyes and when he opened them, he cursed himself for having given in to his weakness. The girl was looking at him and a small smile curved around her lips. It told him she had seen his weakness... and she would tell every little bit to Pyro. They would be back soon, he suddenly knew. He needed rest and then he´d need his strengths to train his powers.


	9. Combat

**Autor´s note:**

Ooookay... rubs her hands with glee. I know, I know... teasers.. I simply love them... but: I proudly present the ominous chapter nine...drumroll please lol

**Blue Flyhight:** Nice to meet a new reader. Hope you enjoy and thanks for your nice words (beams) Charles...hm... I am pondering that to be true...wait and see

**Meow:** Looking forward? I hope you feel rewarded. ;-)

**PsychoSpiff:** I know, I´ve been cruel. Hope you forgive me after this chappy.

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**Disclaimer**

Oh, did I even make a disclaimer? If not then I´ll do it now. Nothing of this (except the plot, see) is owned by me, all belongs to the guys and gals who were involved in making the comics and movies... although I wouldn´t mind owning my very own movie Magneto. (sighs)

Okay, enough said. Read and enjoy.

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**Chapter 9**

**Combat**

Two days had passed. Two days that had made Erik rise early and go to sleep late – exhausted, tired, but satisfied. Too weary to bother for nightmares to come and his senses and mind too sapped to create them. No dreams of rain and screams at night, while re-occuring dreams of power... of revenge started to form during the days. Images in his mind that grew and flourished with the same intensity and speed that his powers had now indeed begun to re-develop. He did not think about how this was even possibly as quite contrary to his usual nature and view on things he was intent with the pure fact that the ´cure´ had not been able to pull him down and make him an ordinary man. He had indeed proved a homo superior, he mused.

Erik had been intent on trying all the things he had been able to do, like moving big objects, even ripping walls apart. He felt like an incaged beast and now realized he had felt like this ever since he had thought his powers lost only had he not known it had been this way. But his rational part had kept him back. He had begun with small things. Moving small objects, letting them float around. Bending smaller metal things like hilts, clips, biros.

On the second day he had become more self confident, almost coltish. With childlike joy he had found his boots still suited him well... how should they not have as he had not worn them for only a shorter time... and he had tried to levitate his whole body by turning his hands in a manner his palms were facing the ceiling, making the metal on his boots rise slowly but steadily. Feeling his heels leave the ground, his hands aloft had filled him with an ungovernable joy. A joy that had almost made him forget he was growing tired and weak again...again, weariness had come over him suddenly and he stumbled, almost fallen. But that didn´t matter. What were a few bruises, he thought. Just another bruise among scars.

When the afternoon came, he decided to call it a day. He was exhausted, but not too tired to stand. He hated it to be powerless, he always had, and so he had instinctively saved some of his strenghts for the rest of the day, although he knew they would not do for another training. He had spent several hours in a large, square room on the lower store of the building. Indeed this floor was already below ground level. The room was big and spartanic, no furniture, a training room rather, a room for sparring he ... and others... had often used in earlier years. He wiped away the thought. He had come here because he felt not yet in total control over metal again and did not want to cause a mess in his study or anywhere else in the lair. He extended his hand and made the shield that was shiningly hovering a few feet away from him crumble into a small iron ball again. He loved this little trick, making small iron balls form into shields and platforms. A very useful thing indeed, especially when it came to breaking out of prison. He caught the ball with his hand, put it into the pocket of his dark trousers and walked over to a small iron bench at the wall of the room, grabbed for a towel he had placed there and wiped the sweat from his forehead. When he approached the door (not intending to open it with his powers) he did not even come to opening it manually. When he came closer, the door swung open and he saw someone stepping in. Someone who, quite to his surprise, had come alone... if he had not left his sneaky little friends lurking somewhere on the corridor.

"Ah." He mocked a surprise. "St. John has returned."

Instead of replying anything, Pyro just stepped in and walked a few paces, ever keeping an eye on Erik, never turning his gaze from the older man. There was something in his eyes Erik could not place, some mixture of cold calculation, surpressed anger and dismay.

"Where are your friends?" Erik asked him, intently trying to act as if he was overlooking the young mutant´s stare. Pyro had something aggressive about him today. Something he would soon expell...soon, but not today... something he did not want to meddle with tonight. Not because he was scared, but simply because he thought the boy was not worth the honour.

A slight scowl appeared on the youngster´s face, but he replied nothing. He just continued crossing the room with an easy pace, ever keeping an eye on him, a behaviour that reminded Eric somewhat of a beast of prey eying its victim. Although he did not feel nervous his hand closed around the small iron bullet in his pocket.

"You didn´t expect me to return?" These were the first words, Pyro uttered since he had entered the room and the aggressiveness and determination, Erik had sensed in the young mutant´s body language was even less conceived here. "Why shouldn´t I have?"

"I will not get into any of your childish debates again, St. John." Erik said slowly, grabbing for the towel, turning to leave. "Stay if you want to...leave if you must."

Before Erik could reach the door, Pyro had reached it, blocking the way casually, making Erik scowl. The young mutant´s lips curved into a sarcastic smile, his right hand on which he was – of course – wearing his glove, was moving nervously. Erik sighed and raised an eyebrow. Enough strength for that left, he thought quickly, time to tell this cheeky little, ignorant brat another lesson. He extended his hand, trying to make the gesture look more casually than it felt, as he was now indeed powered out in the true sense of meaning, waved it and with a rippling sound the cloth that was wrapped around the lighter piece inside the glove ripped open. Before Pyro could grab for it, Erik had grasped for the lighter and caught it lightly. "I´ll take that, my lad. Before you do anything unsuspected... or anything foolish you might regret later."

Pyro stared at him when he lost his lighter, a flicker in his eyes which was both anger, surprise and a hint of that something he had expected had just come true. But instead of turning and leaving, as Erik would have thought he would, he just gave this smile again, this slightly catlike, agile smile Erik had never seen with him before, did some steps backwards and extended his arms, opening them wide.

"Regret?" he asked, his voice, too, bearing a tone that was almost strange for John; too...patient, too...deep. Erik scowled.

"Regret?" the young mutant returned. "No." He shook his head, covering slightly, an agile movement. "But I think you will regret some things, soon... Erik."

The movement was too swift for him to react to. Pyro whirled forwards, hands still spread wide, spinning around with breathtaking speed, kicking his leg high, throwing himself up into the air. A foot hit Erik painfully across the chest, he was taken by surprise and pushed backwards where he hit the ground hard. A ragged gasp escaped his lungs, a stinging pain shot through his ankles, before he, still trying to recover from the fall, whipped the metal bullet from his pocket. With some effort, more effort than it had taken him all day, he flattened the bullet and before Pyro was close enough to strike again, it had become a shield, blocking another kick just in time, crashing against the young mutant´s lower legs, sending him to the ground. But Pyro did not fall. He swiftly rolled off and was on his feet again, before Erik got the strength to get up.

"I knew it." John said, Erik not meaning what he was referring to. "I knew it."

Without any warning, the young mutant did another leap forward. A leap which was full of bundled aggression, a dangerous leap, the attack of someone who had been waiting long to release his anger. Blocking the second attack was much harder and Eric gasped with excitement, forcing himself not to close his eyes from the exhaustion it cost him to control the small piece of metal. Pyro was not as stupid as he had thought, it came to him. The boy had had some wits to wait until he, Erik, was weak. Another blow hit him, this time he managed to use his arms to protect a hand blow against his shoulders. He had managed to get on his feet again halfway, but the effort of defence nearly made him fall again. For a short moment Pyro was distracted, having to fight with Erik´s desperate attempt of defence, being distracted by the older man´s try to block his ferocious punches with his bare hands. This short moment, Erik used. In a second or two, the metal shield became a thin, elastic band of glowing silvery material and in another second, it was wrapping itself around Pyro´s ankles. The boy cursed under his breath, fighting the bond savagely, but with the last strength that was left to him, Erik swiftly completed the chain and locked the metal of the foot chain with the metal of the ground. Pyro was bound.

Getting up was too labourous. Erik got into a sitting position and slowly, breathing hard, moved away from the young mutant who was still fighting like a wildcat to get loose, till he realized his doing was senseless. Both panting heavily, both beaten, the two mutants stared at each other.

"Your skills have lessened." John´s words sounded cold and dangerous, yet it astounded Erik how quickly the youngster was recovering.

"Oh, I do not think so." he gave back with a sarcastic smile. "I find this new development quite satisfying to be honest." He sighed. "So, I think, before I kick you out, St. John, I thought thank you. Without your outburst the other day I would never have been provoked to slam that door. I still would be an old doddler. Having thought my powers had abandoned me, what happened during the last days was the best thing that could have happened."

Suddenly, there was a change in Pyro´s eyes. The coldness he had read in them up to now became something deeper...all he could now read in them was...the gaze of someone being deeply hurt. Not physically hurt, but more... "So you may now have a sense for what it feels like. What it feels like being abandoned by your powers... but you don´t know how it feels to be abandoned by the one you trusted most."

The seconds following these words seemed endless. Erik had the realistic feeling his heartbeat had stopped and that it would be a matter of luck to hope it would go on beating sometime again.

"I..." He did not find any words.

"Look at yourself." Pyro said. And then...slower than Erik knew it... Pyro´s shape vanished, things looking like a snake changing her skin, bit of bit changing, until Erik looked at himself. "What has become of you, Erik?"

It took him all his efforts to take the last breath which sounded even more ragged than before. "Raven, I..."

The Erik sitting across him, shook his head and slowly changed his outer appearance again until the mutant sitting before him looked as he knew her. Blue skin, red hair, yellow, reptile-like eyes. "I do not answer to my slave name." Mystique said.


	10. Shape shifter tricks

**_Author´s note:_**

Wow, a whole lot of reviews on the last chappy. Nice :-) Thanks a lot guys.

**2wingo:** Awww, thanks. Yeah, I wanted to keep the situation somewhat open and cliff-hangery. Hope that worked, but judging from your reaction it seems so.

**PsychoSpiff:** Good to hear ;-)

**KumadaPuma:** Oh, good, because I wanted readers to grow suspitious during the fighting scene already. I tried to describe "Pyro" fight light Mystique would...and found it was incredibly hard...especially if English isn´t your mother tongue. Nice to hear you like the story and my portrayal of Magneto. I base this purely on Ian McKellen´s acting and hope this works. Oh, judging from your bio I just found another McKellen fan:-D

**Meow:** Glad you liked it. So wondered I.

**BlueFlyhight:** Another new reviewer, welcome:-) Hm... I´m not yet sure whether I liked the scene after the credits as I did not feel that shocked by Charles´ death. I thought he´d die before I saw the movie and was proven right. All I hoped for was that Erik wouldn´t be killed. I agree, their friendship is essential to th plot and to Erik´s life.

Okay, here´s chappy 10 for you guys.

* * *

**Chapter 10**

**Shape shifter tricks**

He did not know what he was supposed to feel. He had no idea what she expected him to say or what he would say, as nothing had prepared him for this moment. Since he had seen her, seen Raven, in the city a few days ago, the thought of her showing up at the lair had occurred occasionally, but he had never considered it in depth as he would never have thought her to actually show up, although he could not find reasons for his arguments.

"You didn´t expect me to come back, did you?" Her voice had not changed... or, indeed, it had changed a lot again since he had last heard her speak. The deep, resonating, mysterious voice was so different from the voice of the human, lying naked on the floor of the convoy, whispering his name in desperation and misery.

"I don´t know what I expected" was all he could manage in return. He did not move, did not stand up or make any attempt to release her.

"As I thought." she said, her eyes not straying away from his, a barely concealed fury still obvious in her yellow, reptile-like gaze. "Thinking I would not come back, thinking the great Magneto was the only one to regain his powers."

He scowled and briefly considered her thought only to find this had indeed been what he had thought. When he had found his powers were beginning to recover, he had never for some reason considered the possibility of hers to do likewise. The fact that he was a class 4 mutant, stronger than most, stronger than Mystique and her abilities of a shape shifter that were classified as 3, had been enough to ban this thought or not even let it occur. Or maybe his own euphoria had made him that blind to what might happen to Mystique... and others. He had been a fool indeed.

She gave the band of metal which was still tightly slung around her blue ankle and locked to the ground a long, disgusted look. "Too much of a coward to talk like equals, Erik?" she said. He got up and while doing so waved his hand. The metal bond fell to the ground. He felt tired, but realized it was a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion. It was more.

"Why have you come here, Mystique?" he said, feeling anger with himself for not being able to sort out his emotions in this moment. He did not know what he was feeling, what he was supposed to feel. He couldn´t tell whether it was happiness, fear, insecurity.. maybe a bit of all. She, on the other side, seemed to be clear about her emotions. With a swift and gracious movement she got up and looked him straight into the eyes. "My first thought was to kill you." she said blatantly and he was not surprised to hear these words. She shook her head slightly. "After being loyal to you all these years... I would have let them kill me only to make sure you survived." She stepped a little closer and he had to fight his urge to back away. "When I was lying on that floor, when I saw what happened, I wished their ammunition had been lethal. And even if I had known it was the poison... even if I had registered it... I still would have jumped."

He knew. He knew that every word she spoke was the truth. Had she kicked or hit him again, this could hardly have hurt him more.

"But you... you walked away."

He shook his head. "I..." his throat was feeling dry. "I had no choice then. I did not leave Mystique behind. The person I left there was a human."

She gave a low and joyless chuckle. "I did never consider you to be so stupid, Erik." she just said. "It was you who once taught me to accept yourself. To accept what you are. And when I really needed you most, you turned your back on me."

He replied nothing, for deep inside him he could understand her. He had abandoned her, he had left her there and then, not even looking back, not even thinking about how she might feel, lying there, being a helpless human being. There had been a moment later, however, when he had known what it must have been like for her... and this had been the moment when he had been lying on his back with four needles in his chest.

She waited, tormented him for a few seconds, but obviously did not expect an answer from him. Then she turned around and began to walk towards the door. "So..." she then said, her voice being almost as she had always sounded. Superior with a slight hint of mockery. "The news were full of what was said happened to Magneto at Alcatraz. I take it they were wrong?"

"The cure has begun to wear of" he replied, for the first time not feeling joy when saying or thinking this.

"Oh, really?" She gave him a half mocking, half angry glare over her shoulder.

"I thought you to be smart enough to guess this Erik. It will wear off eventually." She turned around "The antidote did not kick in. Mutations can´t be ´cured´ like this." she remarked. "You, of all people, should have known."

He stepped closer, reached for her, trying to touch her upper arm. Wanting to let her know with this simple gesture that what he had done to Raven Darkholme was nothing he would ever have done to Mystique.

She reacted with her usual speed. With one quick movement she whirled around and he found himself pinned to the iron wall. Their eyes met, hers ablaze with fury. "Don´t." she snarled. "Don´t touch me ever again, Eric Lehnsherr!" Then, she released him and walked out.

He knew she would stay. As independent and proud as she had always been, he knew that in some respect she was just like him: they were outcasts... outcasts again... and just like him, she would not live in disguise any longer, not pretending to be a human and live among them as she could have done easily. Since a short time after she had begun living with him, she had abandoned her disguise only using her mutation for a purpose whatever way this purpose was. Apart from that, she had always been proud of her mutation, proud of being different...because he had taught her this was the only way of living worthy of someone like her. And Erik knew she would go on like this. She would stay, she would not go back to where ever she had been, pretending to be a homo sapiens.

Still, things had changed and after all these years Erik had the feeling they were strangers to each other. Or at least it felt just like this, like the two of them were surrounded by an invisible wall of regret or disappointment that, at least for the moment, could not be overcome.

He had not seen her for the rest of the day, only when he entered the kitchen late in the evening he found her sitting on the kitchen counter drinking a can of coke. She loved coke in cans. He scowled slightly while he walked over to the fridge, pondering how Pyro had been sitting at exactly the same place days ago.

"It hasn´t been you all the time, has it?" he asked casually, not really expecting her to answer. He knew the answer already. A shapeshifter she might be, but whoever she became during her transformation, she only took over the homo sapien abilities and appearances. She could take over the Wolverine´s claws when she turned him, but not his healing powers. And likewise, she could not have been Pyro in disguise all the time, because Pyro had manipulated fire balls in his presence and Mystique in disguise couldn´t have done the like.

"Of course not" she gave back. "being around you all these days would have been a danger for you more than you dare guessing Erik. Had I been around you all the time, I don´t know whether I could have held myself back."

He nodded and knew in an instant that only this afternoon he had not been encountering Pyro, but Mystique. "I knew it." he said. "This was not Pyro´s fighting. Pyro doesn´t fight."

She laughed dryly. "Liar." she gave back. "You didn´t know. It wouldn´t have been the first time I tricked you." Their eyes met and they both smiled before they realised what they were doing.

He lowered his gaze. "True." He just said.

Yes, she had tricked him, he mused. She had done so several times and he had never been angry with her, because for him, these little tricks had always been fun. They had always been an expression of Mystique´s joy in and pride for being a mutant. The very day he had grown to know that the mutation of the blue girl that was living with him was more than a catlike agility and talent in any kind of martial arts, he had been a little angry... not because of what her mutation had turned out, but because of the circumstances under which she had revealed it to him. He was sure she still snickered about this event at times. She had used to give him knowing and teasing glares whenever a woman with brown hair and green eyes walked by where ever they were, reminding him teasingly on how she had played a prank on him once, making him believe that the brunette beauty he had only recently met in a café was nothing more than that... a brunette beauty.

They did not talk for another few moments, until, to his surprise, she started their conversation again. "Since when do you know?" she asked and he knew in an instant what she was referring to. "I was in a park." he said "And one of the chess pieces moved when I focussed on it. At this time, however I thought it to be the wind or my own misperception. It was Pyro who in the end made me discover that I was recovering." she nodded, but did not add her share of the story.

"You played chess?" she asked. "On your own? Erik, that´s poor."

He smiled.

"I never played chess a lot. Actually, I hated it" she said and he did not know why she was picking on this topic, until she jumped off the counter, placed the coke can on the table and gave him an undefined look, before she turned to leave the room, impersonating a little girl´s voice when saying: "My dad told me how to play this."


	11. Company

**Author´s note:**

Okay, a very quick update for you guys. I´m feeling quite in a writing mood right now, so enjoy it as long as this lasts, hehe .

**2wingo:** Yup. Thanks. When i watched the movie I half expected Mystique to show up in that particular scene... I hoped she would, so... this is my version of how things should´ve turned out.

**Meow**: Nice to hear :-) I hoped the dialog between the two of them would work. I wasn´t sure about it, so I´m glad you liked it.

**PsychoSpiff**: Glad you still like the story. Oooh, sorry for the grammar and spelling mistakes. I am German so, trying my best to enhance my command over the English language, I hope my mistakes aren´t too bothersome.

Okay, here you go. And, as you might have noticed...yes, I admit it: I´m a review addict, so keep ´em comin´ :-)

* * *

**Chapter 11**

**Company**

_He so well remembered this day. This day, about 17 or 18 years ago when the brotherhood had not been as tightly wrought as it would be in the years before its recent decline. This very day in early August when he had met this intriguing woman...and learned about the truly amazing abilities of the girl that had been living at his place for more than a year now. _

_She had been sulky when he had prepared to leave, looking at him with her yellow eyes bearing a more than clear hint of reproach. They had not found time to spend the evenings together for quite some days as they had often done before, and Erik was almost having a bad conscious for having to delay her again. The girl, Mystique, as she had called herself after some time, abandoning her human name completely, had become dear to him. She was like a daughter or rather, like a good friend. Although there was quite an age difference between the two of them they got along really well and would often spend the evenings together, both of them reading or talking. Whatever he told her, she always listened intently, taking in his every word like a sponge. He thought this might be a result of a fact that her family had driven her away and somehow appreciated her admirance. _

_Besides training her in the martial arts – in which she had by now succeeded his skills by far – he would also teach her other things. Much to Mystique´s annoyance he would frequently make her read what he referred to as "the classics" and she preferred calling "boring stuff." He did not want to send her to Charles´ school for some reason...maybe because he did not want to encounter his old friend again once having begun to concretely work on his plans of a global network of mutants who were just as determined and desperate for better treatment as he was. So he had found it necessary to teach her himself although he was not sure he was that much of a good teacher he still found knowledge important, even if Mystique might have disagreed._

_When he left this evening however, she was sulking. She had obviously been looking forward for another of their long chats that often lasted till after midnight and he felt sorry he had to say no to her request. He had been working hard for the last few weeks and, as much as he liked Mystique´s company, he was also longing for a night out. He had not had a night out for a long time, as he realized. _

"_I promise I´ll keep my evening free tomorrow." he said with a slight smile, reaching for a light, black jacket. She was sitting on the floor, pretending to be too sulky to look at him, her knees pulled to her body. "We could play some chess if you like, hm?" _

_She gave him a short look, intent on not letting her liking the idea slip through her gaze, but he saw it and smiled. "I won´t be gone long, Mystique." he said. _

_He had wandered around the city for a while, enjoying the soft summer breeze that had fortunately cooled down during the evening. The day had been quite hot, a typical early August´s day when the leaves were already beginning to look dry and drousy. _

_After the sun had begun to set, he had finally found a place that had appealed to him. A small, cozy street café in some side street that had a number of white tables and chairs outside in the fresh air. He had taken a seat and enjoyed some moments in silence, thinking of trivial things. _

_When he finally looked around, investigating the few people around him – mostly youngsters in their mid or late teens and twenties – his eyes met the eyes of a slender woman who was sitting at a table only a few metres away from his. She, too, was alone, and when she caught his eye she smiled at him. Without much thinking, he returned the smile. He had to admit she was quite attractive – she was slender and must have been in her early thirties, her brown, thick hair was open and falling down over her shoulders. Her green eyes were lively and friendly, yet there was something in them that he could not place. Something that seemed familiar. He did not continue thinking what this might be._

_She did not brake the gaze, although his eyes strayed away from hers again and after two or so minutes she took her drink, got up and walked over to him. _

"_Hello." she said. "Are you waiting for someone or may I sit down."_

_He looked at her in surprise, giving her a little smile. _

"_Sit down." he said, motioning to another chair. _

_They soon began to talk and easily enough, both of them enjoyed themselves so that after some minutes they were talking like they had known each other for quite a while and not just met. He asked himself whether maybe she was a mutant and if so, whether she might be sharing his beliefs, but as he could not detect any signs of a mutation, he did not hit on the topic. When the waiter came over to ask whether they would like something else to drink, he invited her to order something and she smiled widely, ordering a coke, asking the waiter whether it came in a can. Erik scowled slightly, smiling as it occurred to him this would just have been what Mystique would have asked for._

"_What´s so funny?" she asked him, still smiling._

"_Oh...nothing." he gave back. "It only seems there are a lot of people who prefer their cokes in cans."_

_She gave a laugh. _

"_So, why are you here?" he asked her to change the topic. "Business?"_

"_No." she said, playfully pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "I was just...visiting a friend." Again she smiled. _

_When they finally left the café it was late already, midnight had past when Erik looked at his watch and he at once felt bad about Mystique again. Although he could not help a smile thinking about the fact that she was surely going to give him the silent treatment and that quite as sure she´d be awake when he´d return, his conscious was nagging on him. _

_Nevertheless he was too much of a gentleman to leave the woman he had just met and talked to all evening ... without even knowing her name, as he suddenly realized ... alone in the dark. When he had offered her to walk her back to the place where she was staying, she had been reluctant for a moment as if she had to think again what her hotel was called, before she had given him the name of one only a street away from the café where they had met._

_The night air was cool, yet not cold and they had not talked much while walking. She had given him occasional glances, something in her gaze he could not interpret. When they had arrived before the hotel, he briefly asked himself whether she would ask him in and he also asked himself whether he would have agreed. He surely would have, he thought. He had not have a love life for quite a time. _

_They were standing a little away from the main entrance when she was about to say goodbye, yet for some reason she seemed reluctant to move away and enter the hotel. _

"_I had a very nice evening" she said, giving him a wide smile which made her even more attractive to him. "It was really very nice having met you." She did not even ask for his name. _

"_Me too." he returned the compliment. "I hope you´ll find your friend." he added, referring to the reason she had given him earlier for being in the city. She scowled shortly, then smiled again. "Oh, I´m pretty sure I will." she said. For a moment there was a strange kind of silence between them when once again she raised her slender hand to push away a strand of hair. Their eyes locked and from an impuls, Erik drew closer to kiss her lightly on the cheek. "Good night" he said. She had turned her face in time, whether accidentally or with purpose he couldn´t tell later, but the result was that his lips met hers, not her cheek. For a moment she remained motionless and her not drawing back, Erik didn´t draw back either. He kissed her tenderly, not meaning to appear too rude or straight forward and feeling her seemingly not bothering he slowly deepened the kiss. Then, suddenly, she began chuckling. _

_He withdrew at once, giving her a bewildered look. "I´m sorry. I did not mean to offend." he said._

"_No." Now the giggle broke out of her and she shook with laughter. _

"_No?" he asked._

"_No." She repeated. "I am sorry."_

"_What for?" He had no idea what she was playing at. _

_She stepped back. _

"_For tricking you, Erik." she said with an open smile, still tears of laughter in her eyes, while he scowled. He had not even told her his name. _

_In the next second he thought there must be something wrong with his eyes. The street around them was deserted and the street lamp close to them was the only light, so he was the only one who saw what happened. He was the only one who saw the brunette woman change into someone else...someone he knew pretty well._

"_Mystique!" He did not know whether he was supposed to be angry or baffled. Maybe he was both. She just grinned, her yellow eyes flashing in the light of the street lamp, when she turned back into the woman he had just kissed. "Yes", she said. "It´s me. I just found out something about my mutation and wanted to show you. But you wanted to go out."_

Knowing Mystique was around made it even harder for Erik to keep the memories at bay. Since he knew it had been her, not an ordinary human child, he had met at the park the other day, too self-absorbed in his own pity to guess who he was talking to, it had become harder to shut away memories of better times. He had tried hard for things not to affect him, but the truth was that he wished for things to be normal again. Now he realized that the recovery of his powers was not all that was required to bring back the old days. Knowing Mystique was around, having read the hurt in her eyes was enough to make him know that much had changed...some things that might never become the same again.

He did not know what she was thinking and although he was pretty sure she would stay at the lair, he had no idea what her true intentions were. She had told him she had had plans of killing him, but was quite sure she had given up on these plans. Had she still been keen of them, he would already have been dead. She would have killed him in the instant she had revealed her identity to him. She would have knocked him to the ground when he had released her from his iron chain. He had been weak then, she could have killed him with ease, letting him die in the knowledge that in the end it had not been his enemies who had destroyed him, but the person that had once trusted him most. The person _he_ had trusted most.

When the night drove on, he decided to call it a day and returned to his bedroom. He undressed quickly and lay down, but could find no sleep, only a light slumber. Nevertheless he remained lying in his bed, trying to force sleep to come to him, although it never did.

At some time during the night, late after midnight he guessed, he could hear someone open the door to his room. He didn´t even stir, pretending to be asleep as he knew who was standing in the doorframe. There was only little light on the corridor outside, but what was left was enough to create a shadow of her slender shape against the wall of his room. He went on breathing normally. Pretended to be asleep. Wondered why she had come, what she would do. After a moment of her standing there without moving, he heard the door being closed again and first he thought she had left. Then, however he found she hadn´t. Erik could hear the smallest hint of a footfall when she crossed the room with the silence of a cat, walking over to the window on the other end of the room. He did not know what he was doing, but when he later pretended to toss himself around in his sleep and carefully opened his eyes he saw her. She was sitting on the window sill staring out into the night.

Finally Erik fell asleep and when he woke the other morning, Mystique was gone.


	12. Solo plans

**Author´s note:**

_Wow, you guys are awesome. This time it almost seemed as if you were sitting right down at your PCs waiting for the new chappy to get published, quick as I got your reviews. (hugs)_

_Okay, so much friendliness and support deserve a favour..._

**2wingo**: Uhm... oh... never thought of that to be honest. But nice to know I tricked you ;-) I really had to think hard (as I do not know the comics) if Mystique was really able to turn into an inanimate object... and then I remembered this Statue of Liberty miniature from movie 1... thanks for that, however.

**Meow**: Thanks. I feel a little less confident when writing Mystique, don´t know why, but nice you hear you like my portrayal of her.

**PsychoSpiff**: Thank you. Yup, I´ll keep going. Here you are.

**Feartoxin**: Hey, a new reviewer. Thanks.

_Okay, here you go... read ahead and enjoy._

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**Solo plans**

The next couple of days passed without much to happen at all. The days seemed long and dull and Erik caught himself becoming uneasy and ill-tempered with himself at times as, although his recovery was now obvious, things never went fast enough on that matter. He continuously went on training his abilities, testing his powers on increasingly larger objects, observing with satisfaction that it became easier every time to control metal and also, that it did not exhaust him to the same extent as it still had a few days ago. About two weeks after Mystique´s arrival at the lair, he found he had made a sufficient amount of progress to be deeply content. Finally, after a time that seemed much longer to him than it had actually been, he began to feel like a mutant again.

Still, this was not like it had once been. Not only had the Brotherhood indeed fallen apart, even or maybe just because of Mystique´s presence, Erik felt lonelier than ever. When he had been alone or with the occasional annoying presence of John for a few days, things had somehow been easier. Now, that the blue shape shifter was around again it felt like the old days had returned in a way... and yet every time they crossed paths, Erik was once more reminded of what had happened. Every encounter with Mystique – and Erik was sure she arranged them passing by at times during the day – reminded him of what he had done when the cure had struck her down... to save him.

They did not talk much; hardly a word passed between them and as much as he missed Mystique´s company, Erik did not insist on it. He did not know what was to become of the two of them, but he was pretty sure that one reason Mystique did not simply leave was because she wanted to remind him of what he had done to her. Still, he was not sure whether this was the only reason. He could not forget about the night she had entered his room, sitting on the window sill in silence, watching the night while she thought him sleeping. She had done so before. She had come to his room at night when she had still been a teenager. She would stay for a while, some minutes, some hours, and after that silently leave for her quarters again. Erik had never let her know he had occasionally known of her presence and only pretended to sleep to not make her feel uncomfortable. He had always understood this kind of behaviour as his young friend´s need for comfort. From the few words Mystique had let slip about her family he could tell fairly early that her parents had not given her much love or comfort... so he had always silently accepted the young one´s innocent nightly visits without telling her he knew.

However, Mystique had grown up and become a woman. Their relationship had changed in many ways which included the fact that she had ceased coming to his room at night ... or at least she had stopped coming there intending not to make her presence known and seeking comfort by watching him in his sleep. Her sudden return to this old behaviour made Erik question Mystique´s true intentions. He was pretty sure she no longer planned to kill him, but he also doubted they would ever be able to behave as they had done over the last few years. As much as he was still reluctant from stepping away from his behaviour in that car convoy, he noticed with an honest regret that this very behaviour might have ruined things forever.

Since their last confrontation, Pyro had not shown up again, nor had any of his two new friends, if the girl, Shade, had not shown enough brains to return without any metal attached to her clothes, and although this might have been possible, Erik doubted John would have had enough wit to tell her how to dress ´adequatly´. He also doubted, Shade would be easily persuaded to sneak into Magneto´s Lair on her own again.

So, being sure there were no teenage spies around to report his doing to a self-announced teenage mutant gang leader, Erik had soon begun to take up serious thinking and planning again. With much time on his hand, besides his self-mentored training, he had however found there was not much he could do. The events at the laboratories had be devastating. The younger members of the Brotherhood, some of which he had had recruited only recently, were dead, vaporized by Jean and he had not had word of the others since that date. When considering reasons for this he found he could not even blame his fellow mutants. No news about the rebirth of Magneto had yet reached the world outside the island, as he was pretty sure Pyro would not have given away the secret for some reason, so the thought of letting the remains of the Brotherhood know he was still there and capable of further actions, needed to be spread first.

However, with little help at hand he knew there was no possibility of a big attack he could plan. Without the Brotherhood it would be hard to coordinate anything big. And when thinking about it... Erik had to admit to himself that he was not even sure if he, given the chance and troops, had wanted to repeat something like the attack of the laboratory at Alcatraz. Not because it had cost him his powers, not because many of his brothers and sisters had died...pawns, as he had explained to Pyro in the heat of battle... but because he knew he had underestimated the Phoenix´s destructive powers. He had wanted to unleash her fury, he had wanted her to rip the very bones of this laboratory apart, oh, how he had wanted it. But things had gotten out of hand. In these days when his powers recovered, Erik for the first time began to grasp the true impact of the war he had forseen. He did not know whether there had been any more losses on sides of the X Men, but those he had seen die had been enough. Jean had been their first pupil, and Charles had been his best friend. Their friendship had never truly stopped, although there had been much that had separated them in their later years. It was in these days of loneliness that Erik began to understand how horrible and devastating the losses had been so far.

When he fell asleep at night, his nightmares of the camps were now often replaced... instead of lines of barb wire, instead of grey faced figures barely alive and smoke rising from grey chimneys he now saw something else his mind made up to torture him: he saw the pure hatred in the Phoenix´s eyes and those almost non-existent glimpses of a desperate Jean somewhere in the depths. He saw Charles´ face, his weak body helplessly lifted from the ground, smiling at his old friend for a last time... At times he could not tell which nightmares were more of a horror as each and every one of them – those that belonged to a distant past and those that told of fresh wounds – were almost to hard to bear.

Warren Worthington II had acquired a place of honour in Erik´s now quite disarranged collection of data files a while back when rumours of the so called cure had first begun to spread. Worthington had never been careful enough to keep his identity hidden which had made it easy for Magneto´s Brotherhood to find out about him. Instead, he had preferred playing the concerned and caring father to his teenage son whom he more than anything wished to ´cure´ from his mutation, affording him a ´better life´ as he had repeatedly called it any time the microphone of any TV station had come close enough to catch his words. He was a person who loved to be the centre of public attention although with the cure being used as a weapon only a short time after it had been released for ´voluntary´ use, the aura of heroic glory that had sorrounded Warren Worthington II and that had been fed by most news magazines, had begun to wear off rapidly.

Still, although Worthington had somewhat taken a distance to his former frequent appearances on the breaking news, Erik was still sure he was the man who would earn great public interest again once it became known how unlasting the impact of the cure really was. There had been rumours about Worthington´s son whom he had named after himself in an attempt of pathos and rumour had it that there had been a split between father and son as the winged mutant had not been willing to take the cure as had been broadcasted before. It was Worthington who had developed the cure and it had been Worthington who had promoted it so Erik had quickly decided it should be Worthington who, being most guilty for the incidents that had happened in the aftermath, had to be paid back.

His plan, although it was rather small-scaled compared to earlier operations of the brotherhood would serve two purposes: if things were working fine, Erik would not only have his revenge, but also would the public, and what was even more important, former and scattered members of the Brotherhood know he was still alive... and able. The battle had been lost, the war was not yet over.

Erik was sure his powers would be sufficient of entering Worthington´s home, making his presence known and leaving again before the X Men or anyone else could put a stop on him. It was a simple and unspectacular plan and would have been easier if he could have counted Mystique in, but he did not ask her. He was sure he would not like the answer to his request and besides that during all these years he had never asked her to do something... she had always joined his plans on her own accord.

It was late afternoon when he was about to finish his work for the day. He had spent several hours in his study researching the grounds of the Worthington estate until he was sure there was no too big danger or trap ahead. Still, it felt strange and...incomplete to try and carry out plans all on his own. Dissatisfied he fell asleep around 6 p.m., forcing himself to get some rest, as he had planned his solo-operation for this very night.

When he awoke and got ready to leave, it felt even more awkward. The lair was silent when he strode through the corridors, intentionally not having put on his cloak and helmet, but leaving in his black Armani coat and hat not to rouse too much interest. He however was wearing his metal belt and boots and even apart from that was not without tools. Everything else he would find at Worthington´s place. Modern people depended on metal more than they knew he noted with a joyless smile.

When he prepared to leave and put on his gloves however, he noticed a movement from the corner of his eyes. Mystique. She watched him for a few seconds and he half expected her to ask him what he was up to. He was not able to tell what she was thinking as her face remained blank. He looked at her for a moment and was about to turn and face the door when her outer appearance changed.

"You might need a pilot to fly the helicopter" a young man dressed as an air force soldier said without the faintest smile.


	13. Fallen God

**Author´s note:**

_Uhm.. okay, this has been quite a delay, I´m sorry. So I hope you´ll like this chapter. Wow, 6 reviews for the last chappy, thanks a bunch, guy_s. :-)

**Meow**: Yeah, certainly would be interesting... if nothing delays him from doing so.

**Blue Flyhight:** Oh, thanks a lot. :-) I might consider sending you the next chapter for beta reading if you don´t mind. Just out of interest, are you a native English speaker for if so you´d really be better than me at spotting language errors as English is only my second language. So please let me know if this chapter was okay language wise

Pyro... okay, I might have made this obvious... ;-)

On a final destination. To be honest... no, I don´t have one right now. Hope that doesn´t take away enjoying the story.

**Psyc****ho Spiff:** Awww, thanks. You make my day with reviews like that :-D

**Emperor K. Rool:** New reviewer, yay. Welcome and thanks for reading and reviewing. Sorry, not come around to read your story yet, but I well, promised! Yup, I´m somewhat of a Tolkien geek I must admit :-)

**Feartoxin**: Thanks ;-)

**2wingo:** Exactly my thought, but he seems to be a little desperate right now, so... hope I keep this logical.

* * *

**Chapter 13**

**Fallen God**

When he strode out into the night and felt the wind on his face, Erik could not abide the odd feeling that there was something strangely familiar to this situation. Although the figure of the young man walking next to him in silence did not tell it, he could make out the grace in his walking that was Mystique´s own and that even the disguise of the young soldier could not hide totally. And still, there was something in the air he could not name, something that made him uneasy. If he was honest with himself he was not sure whether he should be glad or suspicious that she had chosen to join him.

The night was calmer than many of those that had come the days before, yet the wind typical for this small piece of rocky land made it hard to talk in a normal volume which was the reason why Erik kept his thoughts to himself, until they had mounted the helicopter, Mystique climbing in before him, not even looking back. The shape she had acquired only added to the feeling of pride and independence she seemed to be eager to show. He knew what this meant. She wanted to show him that he would be foolish to take her companionship for granted after all that had happened. After what you have done to me, every avoided gaze of the young soldier spoke only too clearly.

Not even waiting for him to settle, Mystique swiftly slid into the pilot´s seat, adjusting the headset and as she began to operate the penals to start the machines, acting as if he were not present. She had not spoken a word since they had left the lair and was most obviously unwilling to change this, yet Erik was not willing to tolerate this situation either. When the rotor blades started spinning, he used his powers to slow them down again and abruptly brought them to a halt. The pilot did not react but only stared in front of him when Erik approached the pilot´s seat from behind.

"Why did you come?" he asked.

"I already told you so." the pilot answered with Mystique´s voice. "I wanted to kill you first..."

"I didn´t mean this and you know it, Mystique." There was no need to keep his voice low... neither was there a need to keep it soft and without any hints of hidden danger. "Why did you come with me tonight?"

He had expected her to ponder her answer for a while, but she didn´t. Instead of it, her reply came quickly. "We have a common aim, don´t we Erik?" It was more a statement than a request. The pilot turned around to look him straight into his eyes and in this moment he understood she was using her disguise also to show him that she was blocking against him. Never before had she felt uncomfortable in her natural form when he had been there, never had she hidden it, ever had she trusted him. Now she preferred a mask, a costume to show him his borders to her trust. "And you better not take a common aim as a proof for common thoughts... or feelings."

He had to admit he had expected something like this, yet he was a little taken aback by the rashness in her words. "You´d do better not to trust me too much, Erik."

"Neither should you." he gave back with a low voice. "You needn´t have followed me."

"And you could have left me at the lair. Abandoning those that are close to you has not been a problem for you at late or has it, Erik?"

And with these words the young military pilot changed into a slender, pale and young woman with dark hair, wearing the same uniform. Raven.

He regarded her with another long look and finally sat down into the co-pilot´s seat. Raven was eyeing him and for a moment the familiar yellow flash entered her eyes. She was angry. He could tell she was, but she concealed it well.

Erik released his grip on the rotor blades and asked himself when he had ever been as careless as he was tonight. There had been times when he would not have taken anyone on his missions he did not trust entirely. There had been times when his life had depended on these bonds of trust. It still did, he now realized, only times had changed. One became desperate with all but one companion gone for the moment. Briefly he asked himself whether his choice to risk taking Mystique along resulted only from his need to get back to action... or if there was more to it. Magneto´s aims had never left any space for regret or pity, so... had his short time as a homo sapiens taught him regret? Was the reason he was so blindly (and foolishly) trusting Mystique not to strangle him in the next moment resulting from practical reasons only? Or was it the desperate attempt to make up for what he had done to her when he had abandoned Raven Darkholme?

The night found the helicopter flying nearly without making a sound at all, the flapping of the rotor blades being kept down by Magneto who was slightly using his powers on them.

Neither of the two of them spoke and Erik only briefly wondered how Mystique knew where they were heading, yet he had not yet had a reason to correct their flight route. He looked over to her and felt the urge to tell her to change her appearance, yet his pride kept him from doing so. If she was preferring to have it her way she should. He would not give in to yet another power struggle. The one with Pyro had been enough.

"How did you know?" he asked, his arms folded across his chest, his eyebrows slightly raised but not even looking at the woman next to him. She knew perfectly well what he was referring to.

"Your computer." she said "it was clear to me at once what you were up to when you prepared to leave."

His eyebrow travelled a bit farther up. "My computer?"

"I didn´t know that plans concerning the brotherhood had become a secret to all but you recently." she said. He did not reply. She had always had a thinh for computers, ever since he had taken her in. He did not know when or how she had acquired her skills as a hacker and he had never asked. Maybe, Erik thought, she had spent more time in her room or in front of a computer than was good for a girl, not having friends to share her spare time with.

"So." He was a little bewildered that she was taking up the conversation again. "Strange how time changes things, isn´t it?" She gave him a short glance, then concentrated on flying again. "I doubt Magneto would have thrown himself head over feet into an adventure like this when the brotherhood was still backing him. Running off into the night, Erik. Without scarcely a plan even from what I could make up."

"You should know better" he replied coolly, annoyed because her remark had been closer to truth than he was willing to admit. His planning had been rather hasty, he knew only too well and in this moment he realized that his plan to confront Warren Warthington resulted more from his own selfish impatience of doing something than from truly having planned anything.

"Should I?" she answered, sounding plain.

He did not say anything in return.

The helicopter continued passing through the night, leaving almost no sound of its presence for the people in their houses underneath to wonder what was going on. Warthington´s estate was situated in the most wealthy part of the city and when Erik concentrated his view on the landscape outside the number of lights below them told him, they did not have far to go. They were flying over the city centre by now, leaving the centre a little to their left with its lamp lit streets shining throughout the night reminding him almost of an airport runway. Everything looked normal for an ordinary night... except the red glow that was emerging from somewhere below them. Fire.

"To the left" he told Mystique suddenly feeling a bad foreboding rise inside him. Something was going on there.

Harder than it had been necessary, Mystique slammed the joystick to the side which made the helicopter fall to the left so suddenly that Erik had to bite back a curse. He gave her an angry look, but all he got in return was a menacing smirk. He found it was nonsense to give in to her mood and looked out again. He had not been mistaken. As the helicopter sank lower to scan the main street, he spotted a number of people who had flocked together in smaller or larger groups on the ground. Flames were erupting unsteadily from a shop window and seemingly the crowd was in an uproar. Whatever was going on down there stank of trouble and Erik had a feeling that was going on down there, concerned him. Before the helicopter even landed on the roof of a three storey house he knew what was awaiting them. Down below in the streets there was the proof that he had always been right. What had begun as a rather verbal battle with debates and demonstrations had now become a public concern. After the first glance he knew that both humans and mutants were involved in a furious street battle. There were about two hundred or so people in the streets, shouting, flying at each other, some armed with nothing more than bricks or bottles but half a dozen of the humans actually carrying guns with them. It took him only one swift look to know the mutants were hopelessly outnumbered. A group of maybe a dozen of them were cornered on the other end of the street fighting furiously... yet it did not seem they were defenseless... or even fighting a lost battle.

For a moment, Erik just stayed where he was, unwilling to enter into battle before he knew what was actually going on. He had not encountered another confrontation between homo sapiens and homo superior since his recovery and now for the first time began to understand how weak and defenseless those humans had to feel against the few mutants they were attacking...

A blast of fire enlightened the night and hit two men among the humans who were standing at the front square across the chest. Pyro, Erik knew with an instant and in the blazing fury of the fire he believed to make out the shapes of the two teens he had seen him with days ago. Shade and the other one, the boy. A scream of triumph came from Pyro and when Erik watched him, he had the feeling his blood would freeze.

During all these years he had told himself how necessary it was to harden himself against any emotion for any homo sapiens he might have to fight on his way to achieve his noble aim. He had always told himself emotions would betray him if he gave in to them, but now he saw something that made him falter. With horror he realized that there were not only adults on the streets below. Besides the three teenagers there were other kids even younger, eleven or twelve maybe, hungry, ragged creatures fighting desperately like animals... on both sides although the number of very young ones was higher on the mutant side. Still, watching Pyro, Erik saw him step closer to a man who in this moment threw a brick into his direction. Pyro ducked and avoided being hit, letting out a cruel laugh that made the man spin around and grab for the hand of the small boy by his side. The kid was young, younger than anyone Erik could make out in the scene. He had not been involved in this battle on purpose. This boy and his father had only been at the wrong place at the wrong time. The man´s attack resulted not from a hatred against mutants but from pure fear for his and his boy´s safety.

"Hey, coward!" Pyro yelled after him, his voice echoing above the battlefield. "Don´t try to run." But the man ran, screaming when his son stumbled over a stone and fell. The kid hit the ground and an instant later Pyro was close, pointing at the little one with his lighter hand. The man stared in pure horror, his eyes wide, silently mouthing a "No"

"That will teach you not to stand in my way, human." he said, smiling evilly. Erik lifted his hands, leaving the flat roof where the helicopter had landed and hovered to the ground, his heart pondering. He extended his hand when Pyro said: "This will teach you not to mess with a God among insects."

In the same moment the fire was erupting from the young mutants hand, a metal bar, left idly by someone who might have used it as a weapon, slammed against the young mutant´s ribs and knocked Pyro to the ground where he let out a muffled scream. The shot of fire never found its desired aim, but hit a nearby trash bin and set it on flames. Pyro gulped. The man ran for his son, grabbed him and his eyes met with Eriks for a second ere he turned and fled. His eyes widened. There was gratitude in this human´s face... and disbelief. The stranger had just realized who had saved his boy´s life.

Distantly Erik realized the battle ground was beginning to clear and most of the humans and mutants began to run off when he stepped a little closer, so close that his boots came to a halt only inches away from the young mutant´s face. The boy was coughing, holding his ribs, writhing in pain but he would be okay soon. He never looked up when Magneto spoke.

"I must have been mistaken." Erik said with a low voice while in a distance the sirens of police cars began to yell. "There are black sheep everywhere. Even among the Gods."


	14. Singlehanded

**Author´s note:**

_Wow, sooo many reviews, I´m impressed. You guys make my day, you really do :D _

**Meow:** Yeah, seems he is, doesn´t it? Let´s see what will come of it...

**PsychoSpiff:** Nice to see I got you by surprise! ;-)

**Eraina:** Thanks, glad you liked it. :-) And I´m happy you liked the last line... wasn´t that sure if it worked as well as I had intended.

**2wingo:** sounds like a possibility... the cure has made him think differently of some things as it seems... although Erik would of course never admit it.

**Blue Flyhight:** Wow, you couldn´t possibly tell something nicer than calling my scriblings something of a worthy review. This really made my day! Oh, and sorry for not waiting for your beta-read. I wasn´t sure whether you had recieved my mail from the day before yesterday, so I hope you don´t mind. As I am horribly busy right now with my exam paper I decided to better post today than tomorrow as I don´t know when I´ll have time to do chapter no.15. might be any day. Might take a time.

**Emperor K. Rool:** Yes, he probably begins to realize Pyro´s a little poser. I thought something like that must have crossed his mind in X 3 in that scene when Pyro tells Magneto he would have killed Charles anytime if he had ordered him to. I think Erik lost a great deal of respect in Pyro then.

**Angel of Snow:** Oh, and soooo many thanks to you again:-) All those great and nice reviews. You know this is something that really makes one feel truly great the whole day. So, although I already did, here you go again: THANKS:-D And here you go, another chapter.

**Genkai Shihan:** Nice to have another new reviewer, so welcome and thanks for your nice words. :-)

_Okay, after all that... here you go... read and enjoy... and review ;-)_

* * *

**Chapter 14 **

**Single-handed**

How quickly some things changed, Erik thought when he was standing with his feet only inches away from the face of the young mutant who such a short time ago had still affirmed his uttermost loyalty to him. Pyro´s face was grey with the dust he had fallen into, he was giving another ragged breath and finally after what seemed like an eternity, lifted his head slowly. He did not even let his eyes stray towards Erik and Erik was surprised to notice the courage of the youngster. Maybe he had some backbone after all... still... enough was enough.

"Who allowed you to get up?" Magneto´s words sounded cold, cruel almost and sent a shiver down his spine. When had the tide turned the young mutant against him? Such a shame. The boy had potential. It was too late, however, to let sentimental thoughts like this stray into his mind. Never before would Magneto have suffered a humiliation like the one John had given Erik those last few days. And Magneto was not willing to change this routine whether it had been a homo sapiens, Pyro had bullied or not. All that counted was that Magneto had recovered... which made it hard for Erik to ever admit to himself that he had indeed been a homo sapiens for a limited span of time... and what was more: one who had been at the mercy of this young and insufferable prat. A God among insects. He had been wrong indeed.

To his feet, Pyro continued his struggle to get back on his legs with the stubbornness of a child that was learning to walk and get up from the ground. Erik could even understand it. Being humiliated like this, being thrown to the ground, facing the dust was nothing any homo superior should have to endure. But still... maybe some deserved it. "I said don´t!" His voice was barely more than a dangerous growl when he gripped Pyro by the belt with his powers and with more than a gentle reminder of who had won this fight flung him back onto the dusty street and in the same moment tossed him around so the youngster was facing him. The gaze John gave him would have been fit to kill. Erik smirked.

"And now get out of my eyes." he said with a low voice that was almost blended over by the approaching sirens, yet very well audible for the young mutant. "Get out of my reach before I regret having let you go." With a jolt, he released the young mutant and Pyro hastily stumbled to his feet. Erik found he had been mistaken; the boy´s gaze was just as much fear as fury. The youngster´s voice was a strange (and in no way imposing) mix of a boy´s fear and childish stubbornness when he said: "No. Those times are gone." He straigthened himself and seemed he was about to leave. "As I told you before, I am no boy anymore. You´d do better to count me in as a factor to deal with, old man."

A flip of the young mutant´s hand was enough to let Erik know what he was up to. He almost sighed with annoyance and resignation, ducked from the flame with ease and kept any other bolt of fire from erupting from John´s hand by ripping the lighter glove off John´s hand. The lighter flew lightly into Erik´s hand where he let it hover over his palm for a second before he crushed it beyond repair. "Don´t." was all he said.

Later, Erik was not entirely sure what had betrayed John´s accomplices... whether it had been John´s triumphant glance to some imaginary point behind Magneto´s shoulder or whether he had sensed first that the girl approaching him from behind was still stupid enough to wear her necklace. Maybe it had been a bit of both, he mused when with a light movement of his hand he snapped the invisible chain in two and with another movement slung the necklace around the neck of the other youngster who as he could see when he turned his head was by her side. The boy choked.

Erik sighed and raised an eyebrow without giving the choking teen a second glance. Seemingly totally unmoved by what was going on around him – Pyro staggering away, the mutant whose name he didn´t know getting to his knees with his hands at his throat and the police most audibly approaching -he looked at the thin air right to where the young nameless mutant had gone to the ground and addressed the night, barely able to hide his amusement from his words.

"Young Miss Shade, I think we´ve met before." He turned around entirely, his boots making ruffling sounds on the broken bricks he was standing on. "Show some manner, young lady." he demanded in a voice that bore authority and airiness in the same way. "I would very much regret having to hurt your young friend. We´ve been through this masquerade already, haven´t we?"

For some seconds she hesitated, then the slender form of the black-haired, dark-eyed teenage girl materialized in front of him. Erik gave her a triumphant smirk. "Well, well, that wasn´t that hard or was it?" He ignored the half frightened, half angry glare of the girl when he released her young friend and the smile faded entirely from his face when he cocked his head towards Pyro´s direction.

"Off with you." he said coldly.

Shade bolted at once, shooting an angry glance at him, leaving her necklace on the dusty ground where it had fallen when Magneto had released the boy from choking. The boy, however was not that clever, waving both his hands in a wave-like movement when he ran past Magneti to follow Shade. A wave of water erupted from the young man´s hands, but the boy was already some metres away which left Magneto enough time to block the wave with an iron shield quickly formed from the iron bar that had sent Pyro to the ground only moments before.

"Please." he said, sounding half bored, biting back a smile when the gush of water hit the shield, was thrown back and soaked both teenagers. He did not bother to even look after them when they ran, but he could hear Pyro hesitating before he left to follow his chicken hearted friends.

He remained where he was, standing in the middle of the street that was by now, almost deserted. Only a hand full of troublemakers had remained and were continuing to fight rather half-heartedly down at the other end of the road. He looked up to watch them, recognizing from the corner of his eye Mystique in the shape of Raven Darkholme approach. She stopped when she had reached his side but kept a distance of a few metres facing the same way he did.

"What a show," she said slowly, sarcasm clearly echoing in her voice. "Magneto fighting three teenagers single-handed." Their gazes never met. "I wouldn´t say I´m impressed." she added.

He snorted but it half sounded like a chuckle. "I see. I knew you had a reason not to come to my aid."

Now she did look at him. Directly. Even from the corner of his eyes he could tell anger was flashing in her eyes again. "You didn´t count me in when you left the lair, so why should I have stepped in for you?"

He didn´t answer. The sound of the sirens drew nearer. The first police car turned into the main street. He raised his hands and lifted from the ground. "Time to go, my dear" he said, stressing the last two words as he knew they were the least she would want to hear.

When he looked down at the dusty ground he left below him, he recognized something lying there. More from a reflex than from actually thinking he reached for it with his powers. The necklace flew into his outstretched hand.


	15. Chances

**Author´s note:**

_Oookay, I felt like writing today and am quite content with what this chapter turned out to be. Hope you like it. And I hope you will appreciate with many many reviews that it took me only a few days for another update._

**PsychoSpiff:** Thanks a lot. :-) (beams)

**Meow:** 2.0: Pyro Edition. Looool, that was hilarious, it made me laugh :-D I might steal that expression... if I may?... to put it into some later chapter... hehe

**Genkai Shihan:** Oh yeah... I guess Erik will soon wonder, too. Wouldn´t have been logical to let him take the necklace if there wasn´t any significance to it or was it? ;-)

**Emperor K. Rool:** Yup, he just said it to annoy her, he looks like the guy to do things like that.

_Okay, nuff said, this chapter´s going to be quite dark and such... hope you don´t mind._

* * *

**Chapter 15**

**Chances**

They had climbed the helicopter wordlessly and a gaze had been enough for Erik to let Mystique know his plans concerning Warthington had been cancelled. He did not tell a reason for it and if he was honest with himself, he did not even know one himself. Or, better: he did not know which of the two reasons had been the one to make him head back to the lair in stead of doing what he had left the lair to do. Was it what he told himself? That the street fight had cause enough uproar for a night? That people would expect mutants to be behind it? Sure they would. There had been eye witnesses for Pyro and the others, so by now the estates of famous people... especially those who had a word or two to say in mutant affairs.. would have been called and made safe. They would not expect Magneto to arrive at Worthington´s in the dead of night, but Erik preferred not to let it come to this. Maybe he had by now given in to the fact that there had been some truth to what Mystique had said earlier. He had not had a true plan. He had left the lair in a rush... in the desperate – and lightheaded - urge to get back to action. Or was there another reason behind abandoning his further ´plans´? He knew there was. He knew he could not trust Mystique. Not yet. She had taken no action against him which he knew had nothing to do with her fearing him, but she had not come to his aid either when he had been confronting Pyro. She had not been far away he knew. She had witnessed the fight, but she had not dropped in as her remark had made only too clear. He did not want to rely on her in this state of mind. He had known her for years, but life had told him never to trust anyone too much. Mystique had been close to being offered his unlimited trust once... but no more.

Erik felt tired. More than he would have admitted and more than once on their way back to the lair he found himself fighting against his urge to close his eyes. He wanted to sleep. He felt weary. But sleeping in the company of another was a proof of trust. One he was not willing to risk. Not yet.

They did not talk. The constant, silent flapping of the rotor blade was the only sound that filled the helicopter cabin. Mystique had remained in her Raven Darkholme shape and he had stopped feeling irritated by it, as he knew this was just the way she wanted him to react. No. He was above that.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

_Rain. He knew it meant no good as soon as he felt the first raindrops fall. He opened his hand and watched, transfixed to the vision of his own, small palm how a raindrop fell onto his skin. Then a second one. And yet another. The rain became heavier. He knew his clothes would be soaking wet soon, he knew he was going to be cold and he knew there was nothing that was going to stop the cold... nor his fear. He rubbed his hands together although he knew it was useless and that just as his fingerless dark grey gloves were not able to hold back the biting chill of the day, nothing would help to fight the cold within him. He knew... he had felt this before... so often... so many nights._

_He looked up and his gaze met the eyes of his mother. Her shape, just as his own, expressed fear and hopelessness in every fibre of her being, every breath she took, visible in the form of small clouds of whitish smoke that floated away from her greying face through the rain breathed fear... termination._

"_Don´t be afraid!" She tried to force a smile, but didn´t succeed. He knew she was trying to fight back tears, he knew her fear was just as intense as his own despite the effort she was making not to show to her young son. "Don´t be afraid, Erik. All will be fine. They won´t... separate us. I won´t let them." Her words were barely more than a whisper, words that were ripped from her lips by the wind, the rain and the fear eradiating from the crowd they were a part of. Dozens, hundreds of people – men, women, children. Many of them sobbing, others nearly paralized in shock and horror... those that had heard stories about the place they were taken to. A place of no return. Not just a camp as they wanted to make them believe, but... _

_He couldn´t help but let his eyes wander over their heads... and towards the walls... the gate... the masses of barbed wire, encaging figures that hardly deserved to be called human beings any more..._

_Erik bit back a sound of pain when one of the soldiers hit him in the back with the hilt of his gun. "Los. Vorwärts!" The words uttered in German sounded cruel, merciless. He stumbled on. His father looked at him over his shoulder, his black, sloppy hat nearly covering his eyes which were rimmed with darkness and exhaustion after days of hunger, cold and fear in a train compartment the Germans didn´t even use to transport their cattle anymore. Cattle was worth more to them than what those trains transported these days. _

_His feet were carrying him although he was not consciously thinking about moving his feet and thus moving closer and closer to the gate that had appeared before them a time ago. A gate made of steel, rain streaming from its pitiless bars, dropping from the wire that was slung around it and pinned to the tops to hinder the poor creatures it imprisoned from an escape they did not have the strength for anyway. _

"_Erik. Stay with me!" He felt his mother clutch for him, wrap him in her arms, her clothes just as dirty and soaked as his own. He kept his gaze on the gate. Blinked. He suddenly felt very tired and agitated at the same time. Fear was taking its toll. His fingers were already starting to tingle strangely. His panic deepened, but he tried not to show. He would be strong. He had to be strong. If it was true what they said about these camps they would separate them from his father. They would make him work till he died. He needed to be strong. For his mother he needed to leave his fear behind. _

_Suddenly the crowd became agitated. Just as his mother had a moment ago, he saw people suddenly grab each others arms, He could see a man putting his hands onto a young boy´s shoulder. Father and son, he was sure. They looked at him for a moment. A moment which seemed strange, out of focus and unfamilar. They did not belong here for some reason._

_When Erik turned his head, he saw more soldiers approaching from behind, their faces without emotion and pity, grey and lifeless as the rain. Those were not humans, he thought. Why were they doing this?_

_The crowd began to huddle together like a herd of sheep fearing wolves. Small screams and sobs were to be heard everywhere around him when Erik was continually pushed closer and closer to the gate. The tingling in his fingertips became more obstrusive. He tried to ignore it. He closed his eyes and concentrated, thinking that if the tingling was leaving, everything would be all right. He knew it was an illusion, but did not care. The shoving and pushing continued and he was forced to re-open his eyes. He had to blink as raindrops were falling heavily from the rim of his shabby cap, soaking his hair, soaking his face, watering his eyes, mingling with the tears that had begun to trickle down his cheeks. He did not know what was happening. All he knew was that suddenly his mother´s embrace was gone and gone was the little warmth her weary, ill-nutritioned body had been giving him. _

"_No!" He sobbed, screamed and her scream echoed like madness in his ears .. madness called upon humans by humans that were not worth to be labelled human. Rough hands were pushing him aside, seemingly unaware that one of the poor creatures had been abandoned, pushing him away from his mother. He stared in shock, unable even to scream, tears streaming down his face, his hand reaching for her, his lips moving wordless confessions of his panic. _

_He struggled with all the strength that was left and had to find it was not much... not more than a small child could have given. His father had clapped his hand over his mother´s mouth in the desperate attempt to silence her... to make her stop screaming their boy´s name... maybe the soldiers would just oversee him... just leave the boy outside the gates like an abandoned piece of cloth... not do to him what they told they did to those poor souls that were taken to the camps. Her screams were muffled, her eyes remained wide in fear, in panic when their gazes met... met... and the gaze was broken._

_He screamed, he was out of his mind. His head felt heavy, his vision blurred and he only half consciously felt the soldier´s arm wrap around him, hold him back... he continued screaming... screaming...he stretched out his hand... and the tingling in his fingertips exploded to excrutiating pain..._

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Erik could have sworn the pain was still there, the pain he had felt when all those years ago, his mutancy had first shown. For a moment he left his eyes pressed shut, panting heavily, feeling he was sweating all over... feeling from the huskiness of his breath that the screams of his dream had been screams of his own. Screams of fear and despair that had carried through the nightmare and into his waking life, transforming the fear of the young, Jewish boy he had once been into the scream of the man, the mutant, the homo superior...he had become...he had become again.

His fight against the soldier had shown its effects, too. Erik opened his eyes and pushed aside what was still in his bed from the pillow he had for the most part struggled away and off him. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, then he switched on the small lamp on his bedside table with a shaky flick of his hand. Warm, yellow light filled the room and chased away the dread of grey shadows on the nightly walls.

Sleep was gone for the night, he knew. There was no use in trying to lie down again and find the peace of silent dreams. He knew this peace would be denied from him tonight.

He got up and walked towards the window and with every step he made the dreams slipped a little further back into the shadows of the past from whence it had come. The colour grey became less threatening, screams that had been echoing in his head moments ago faded into the emptiness of forgetting, images he had lived through as he had so many times before, became blurry. All... all, but one. He had known they did not belong to this place, to this time, when he had seen them. They had never been in his dream before. A father and a son, looking at him, shortly before his family had been taken from him. No, they had never been there, because they had not lived back then. It had been Erik himself who had put them into his nightmare. He had seen them only hours ago. A dark-haired man throwing a brick at a young mutant who was to threaten his little son´s life. A man and a boy in panic from the gaze of a mutant who saw them as worthless ... unworthy creatures not as valuable a life form as he was.

Erik Lehnsherr closed his eyes when his hands grabbed the iron window sill. It felt good and soothed his nerves and heartbeat. Sometimes these nightmares came out of nowhere, sometimes they had a reason for torturing him again. As they had had this night. He had not thought about his doing back that evening when he had seen what Pyro was about to do. He had just reacted. And now he knew why...the panic in this man´s eyes had been a mirror of what he had so many years ago seen in the eyes of his mother. The uttermost panic of a person who knew there was no chance of escape. They had not had a chance once. His mother, his father, they had never had a chance once they had been put at the mercy of those that thought them unworthy of being alive at all. Magneto suddenly knew why only a few hours ago he had definitely made Pyro his enemy... it was because he had decided that the little creature that had stumbled over the stone and fallen onto the street deserved a chance he had never been given.


	16. His soft spot

**Author´s note:**

_Sorry so much for letting you guys wait so long for a new chapter which (I must admit to my shame) is not even that long. I´m terribly busy at the moment, finding nearly no time to write as my final Exam termpaper takes up much of my time. Still, I hope you don´t mind too much and return for another chappy read and review. Make my days, please, they are rather dull nowadays with all the exam paper stuff._

**Meow: Thanks.** :-) I might put it to use, although it does not sound exactly like something Erik would say himself... but someone else maybe.

**AngelofSnow:** This half annoyed half arrogant "please" occured to me when I imagined the situation so I just put it in. Glad you liked it.

Yes, I think he´s a workaholic. And I´m glad you think him rushing of without a plan fit in. I wasn´t too sure about that.

You nearly cried? Wow. That´s a nice compliment. :-) Thanks a lot.

**PsychoSpiff:** Yes, he is. Poor guy. This aspect of him (and the fact that Ian McKellen took his role) always added to my understanding his actions at least to a certain extent.

**2wingo:** Indeed. The idea of putting in this father and the little boy was rather spontaneous. It added a terrible extra to his already gruesome nightmares.

**Emperor K.Rool:** Rather both, yes. Although the latter sounds more likely judging from what I as a history student have grown to know about the Holocaust.

_Okay, and now, without further ado..._

**Chapter 16**

**His soft spot**

The next day he was weary. He simply had not been able to go back to bed after he had awoken in the middle of the night. Although dreams were swift to fade, nightmares of this sort used to haunt him longer than a normal dream would do. He had paced the lair with a restlessness he had not known he still possessed...till dawn had come. How sleeplessness lengthened the hours of the night, he thought when he looked out of the window, out into a chill morning where a cold sun was just beginning its slow rise over a misty horizon. He sighed inwardly while making his way over into the room next to the kitchen, a cup of black coffee in his hands, for a moment giving in to the dreamy illusion that the warmth of it could chase away the cold he was feeling inside.

The room he entered was one of the largest in the lair and for lack of better words the label ´living room´ had proven most fitting, although such a room (just as a kitchen) did somehow not fit into the clichée image of a mansion of Magneto the mutant terrorist. In fact, it was rather a library than a living room, with high, expensive bookshelves made of dark wood running along two of the walls, reaching up to the ceiling. The furnishing of the room was simple yet tasteful and the attribute of elegance was somewhat more appropriate than saying it was sinister, although dark colours dominated. The floor was a dark chestnut parquet, covered for big parts by dark red carpet, the wall left to the door was inhabited by an elegant fireplace and, although Eric had always preferred to spend what little freetime he had with reading than dulling his senses over some stupid movie, the forth wall had a TV set. Somehow it did not fit into the otherwise almost noble looking room.

He had hoped to have some time to himself to spend in solitude, but when he turned the corner to enter the room he heard there was already someone there. The tune of the television set told him, he would not have the room to himself. Mystique was sitting on the leather sofa in her own blue shape, her knees pulled towards her body, her eyes fixed on the screen. She looked miserable, like the child she had once been. As a girl he had often see her sit her like this... he remembered these had been the moments when she had been most vulnerable. He did not have much time to watch her, nor did he have time to make up his mind to leave or stay. She was aware of him after a second and her yellow eyes met his. He realized with a mix of dismay and determination that the angry glare was still obvious in her reptile like gaze. She regarded him for a short moment, then, without paying him further attention, she fixed her eyes on the screen again. He remained standing in the door frame, feeling somewhat displaced, feeling he was losing himself in his own thoughts for a moment, before he turned to go. He had not even bothered to look what programme she was watching. He only knew that at some point it had become awkward to be in the same room as Mystique. He turned around.

"Seems Magneto is back." He stopped in his trails when she uttered those words and for odd reasons her resonating voice was giving him chills down his spine. He turned around to find she had not done equally and was still facing the screen. "You made it on the news again." Her voice was plain, bereft of emotion, there was no mockery in her words, nor anticipation. Nothing. Reluctantly he stepped closer and turned his attention towards the images flickering over the screen.

The scenery was familiar as he at once recognized the street in which the mutant-human streetbattle had taken place. The reporter speaking into the camera, a middle aged human with already greying dark blonde hair, was speaking hasty in a way that was almost annoying.

"_...the early hours of the night. Who was behind it is not yet clear, yet several witnesses reported the involvment of a group of mutants. Several injured person were taken to the State Hospital, but none of the mutants could be caught when the police arrived."_

The picture switched back and was now showing the newsreader who continued: _"Local authorities are currently dealing on uncovering the circumstances that led to these latest events. The government has claimed its right to intervene in the inquiry as, according to a young citizen who got involved in the battle unwillingly with his son, former mutant terrorist Erik Lehnsherr, known as Magneto, has been seen on the site of crime. Magneto has been believed to be no more danger to human society any more due to him being targetted with the cure during the terrorist attack on Worthington Laboratories on Alcatraz last month..." _

He had heard enough. It cost Erik only a flick of his thought to switch off the TV. He half expected Mystique´s protest, but when he turned around to leave the room, she kept silent. However, when he entered the kitchen, she was on his heels and when he placed the cup on the counter and turned to meet her gaze she was closer than he had thought. For a split second, something that almost equalled fear flooded his brain. He said nothing.

"I saw you." she said, her voice plain and emotionless as before.

"I saw that human they spoke of in the news. You saved his son."

He could not bear her confront him like this, gave a half angry, half rebuking snort and attempted to make his way out of the kitchen. She blocked it.

"What do you want?" he said in a low voice even she knew was dangerous. "Have you come back to tell me what to do?"

She smiled, then her face became stern again. "No." she said and stepped aside. Erik made no attempt of leaving. She continued. "I just wondered what had happened to the Magneto I once knew." He knew what she was referring to. He knew what she was going to say and he almost hated her for it. "The Magneto I knew would not have saved a human child if it was man against mutant." She half circled him and then, with a smooth movement, jumped onto the counter. "Was that a soft spot...Erik?"

Her mention of his name triggered something he could not name. For a second he was so close to telling her. So close to telling her about his doubts, about Pyro´s ambitions... about that his time as a homo sapiens had opened his eyes to the danger the young mutant was and which he had overseen. But the moment passed. The gaze he gave her was cold. As cold as the one she returned, after a bit of warmth had entered her gaze which she had failed to conceal.


	17. Shadow of a sun

_Author´s note: I think I never updated this story so quickly. Don´t know how I managed to write another chapter that quickly. Maybe, because the idea for it was ghosting through my brain for about 1 or 2 weeks and I just had to put it down on paper? Or maybe because it feels really nice to write a bit of fanfiction after having spent three hours or so writing an exam paper? Might have been that... however. Sing and rejoyce as another chapter is on now._

**AngelofSnow:** Somehow I knew you´d like my desciption of his living room :-) Sophisticated... yes, that would fit Erik somehow. Don´t know why, it simply does.

Oh yes, the betrayal... which I am sure was not intended as one. Possibly the poor guy was telling the press how Erik had saved his kid, but... Magneto´s bad reputation and the bloodsucking nature of the media got the better of it.

**KumaDaPuma:** Never heard of the Grateful Dead but.. thanks :-) Oh, I love foreshadowing so... wait and see. Glad the tension I intended to be between the two of them came out. It was rather difficult to make clear because they don´t really talk much, so I´m happy you felt it :-)

Sorry to tell you I can´t drop that paper. But anyways, I hope this quick update makes up for the long wait before.

**Chapter 17**

**Shadow of a sun**

Later, Erik could not say how long their eyes had been locked, but although it appeared longer, it must have only been seconds until Mystique broke the eye contact and left the room. She left him with the odd feeling that although he had resisted her gaze, he had not won this round in their private battle. It felt strange even to consider things that way. A battle. When had the tide turned? When had the world become a place that had turned his most loyal companion, the only one he had ever trusted, against him? A little, mocking voice inside his head insisted on him being guilty in this as well and for a moment his mind flashed back on the dark eyes of the battered, desperate young naked woman on the floor of the convoy... until he swept it away. Mystique should know better than that, he thought with a hint of anger entering his thoughts. She should know better, she, of all people should be able to draw the line between homo sapiens and homo superior. Draw the line... it only increased his anger that he very well knew he had not been sticking to that very line too well only hours ago.

He did not follow her. His anger against her, against himself, prevented him from doing so, so he forced himself to finish his coffee although he very much felt like simply pouring it away. Standing alone in that kitchen he knew so well only reminded him of how alone he had become. In this moment he learned a lesson Magneto had never learned so far. He had always known that being a mutant isolated him, made him an outcast. This very knowledge had been the main force and drive behind what he was doing... but now he began to understand that regaining his powers was not all it took to mend old wounds. He was alone. And still, his pride kept him from following the blue shape shifter. His pride made him sip on that already cooling black coffee pretending he was strong enough to endure whatever might cross his way.

Finally he placed the cup on the counter and put his hands into the pockets of his black trousers. He had already set his mind to retire to his study to... he had not decided on that yet, when his fingers found a small metal objects. He closed his hand around it, knowing in an instant what it was, but for a moment did nothing but sense the small vibrant humming the metal that was trailing through his mind. In his time as a homo sapiens this had been what he had missed most. The pure presence of metal. He took out the necklace and balanced it on his open palm, turning the pendant with his thumb, scowling slightly while doing so. He had lifted the small item without thinking. It obviously had had some personal meaning to its former owner and he wondered what that might have been. Maybe it had been a present from an ordinary teenager admirer he mused with a disapproving smirk. Stupid girl whose emotions had made her act foolish enough to appear near him showing off her mutancy and yet twice betraying her presence by that little thing around her neck.

It looked rather simple. The chain was glittering silvery as was the pendant which was shaped in the likeness of a small sun with slithering rays. He wondered whether it had a meaning... probably not. She might have chosen it for its pretty look.

Without giving it another thought, he put it back into his pocket and went into his study, trying to think about something more pleasant than nightmares and the recent animosity with Mystique.

Peace had not been granted for long. He had been sitting in his study, the room which felt best for him right now with all the metal around him assuring him the loyalty his former allies were no longer willing to offer. He had switched on the stereo and fetched one of his favourite books from the small library, he had enjoyed some simple moments of near drowsiness his mind nearly distracted from current troubles by soft classical music pouring silently into the room... when without knocking the door opened. Mystique stepped in, her gaze as repellent as before. From a reflex he closed the book with a snap and found his powers focus on metal objects close him, his every muscle becoming tense.

Mystique only gave him a glance that mirrored both anger and amusement because of his anxiety before she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Although I can not say I am sorry for startling you... I had to."

He scowled.

"There is someone who asked to see you." Without asking whether he was even willing to welcome a visitor, let alone talk to one, she turned and left. A moment later another mutant stepped in. Slender, dark haired. It was Shade.

Her sudden appearance surprised him, yet he merely quirked an eyebrow.

"Mystique?" He knew she was just round the corner and he ignored the presence of the girl until a few moments later she was back, giving him a glance that spoke all too clearly she would not have answered to him calling her back if she herself had not agreed to it.

She just looked at him, saying nothing.

Erik´s lips curved into a smirk. "Oh. That´s all. I just wanted to be sure." Mystique spun around and left. He was sure she would have snorted in anger had it not been for her pride to prevent her from doing so. He had known the girl was Shade, not Mystique; it had simply nagged him to show he was not willing to accept all of Mystique´s grudges. He had had enough of power plays these days.

Somehow he managed to veil his surprise, set the already closed book aside and moved a second chair from the corner towards the girl till it almost knocked the teenagers knees from behind. "No attempts of another masquerade this time?" he asked with a slight, superior smirk. "St. John might have send you here, if I presume correctly?"

She gave the metal chair a short look and sat down, trying to demonstrate self-confidence by looking him directly into the eyes. She was courageous for someone who so far had preferred to hide, he thought with slight amusement.

"No." she said and it sounded insecure, her voice raised by the end of the word making it sound rather like a question than a comment. "I came her by myself."

"Indeed."

He stood up, feigning disinterest, walking over to a cupboard where he kept a bottle of whine, helping himself to a glass of it, not offering any to her. She ignored his lack of hospitality.

"I..." No, Erik was sure of it. Her selfconfidence was show, nothing more. She had her hands clasped together and avoided his gaze when he searched hers.

"Yes?

"I think you might have something that belongs to me."

He placed the glass of wine down and leaned against the table, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"You think so?"

"Yes." Now she met his gaze. "I lost it last night. I think you took it, as when I came back it was gone."

Without shifting his arms he used his powers to extract the necklace from his pocket, letting it hover between them. "You might be right then, Miss Shade." He smiled slightly, careful not to let this smile enter his eyes.

"Can I... can I have it back, then?"

Erik couldn´t bite back a chuckle. "I am no thief, young lady." He released his mental grip on it and the chain fell into the girl´s outstretched had. "Still, allow me to wonder why you would have this little traitor back? I doubt St. John would be happy to learn his accomplice keeps carrying around objects that make her so easy to detect to the mutant he has, overestimating his abilities, declared his enemy."

For a moment she was at a loss of words. She had prepared to him denying her the necklace, he could tell from her reaction. Finally she answered.

"It was a... gift. It means a lot to me."

So he had been true. Young people.

"A gift then." He raised his eyebrows. "Anything else I can do for you?" It was a dismissal and she knew it was and got to her feet. When she was nearing the door, she stopped and turned.

"Yes?"

"I... I didn´t come on Pyro´s orders." she said.

"So I thought. And?"

"I came here because..." Her eyes trailed around nervously which confused him. She had appeared like a self confident young girl not to be troubled easily. He could tell by the glow in her eyes that she was a strong, tough kid.

"I suggest you go ahead speaking in whole sentences, Miss Shade. I´m not a friend of riddles and your manner of speaking begins to slightly annoy me."

"I didn´t tell Pyro, but... I need your help."

This time it was harder to conceal his surprise.

"And how should you think I might help you?"

"I joined Pyro´s gang some two weeks ago." she said, speaking fast, her voice slightly quivering. "I met him right after I escaped them and hoped he could help me, but he doesn´t even know what he´s doing. When first I joined him he kept talking of you. Of the great mutant you had been, he talked of your power, of the admiration he had had for you... he doesn´t any more, but ... I think John would not even listen."

"To me this sounds pretty much like another riddle" Erik gave back and with a softer note to his voice added. "Take a seat."

Something about what the girl had said had aroused his interest. _"...after I escaped them..."_

She did as she was asked.

"And now, tell this without riddles. And right from the beginning."


	18. Hopes and Shade

**_Author´s note:_**

_Okay, I´m back. This is the longest chapter of the story so far and quite a lot of thinking went into it till I had puzzled Shade´s story together. Yay, thanks for the reviews, but: hey, this story´s on 16 alert lists. C´mon, give yourselves a push, leave a review. My days are quite dull and boring right now because of my nasty exampaper so... every review makes my day.. and makes me update faster ;-)_

**LunarSquirrel:** Awww, thanks. Such a nice review. I´m always happy to hear when people think my spelling and grammar is okay. (beams) Glad you like my story and I´m glad you like the characterizations as Mystique is giving me a hard time now and then. Somehow, writing Magneto and Pyro comes a lot easier... hm..

**AngelofSnow:** You can hug him when I´m done, okay? (goes on hugging Erik) I´ve actually grown to like Shade as well, so... you might be happy with this chapter.

**Meow:** Nice to have you back. Hope you had nice holidays :-) So... hope you like the new chappy.

**2wingo:** (grins) Uhm... I won´t take anything away from the story yet... (coughs) wait and see ;-)

_Okay, here you go... and remember: drop a review!_

**Chapter 18**

**Hopes and Shade**

Erik could tell the girl was fighting an inner struggle and he couldn´t condemn her for it. Leaving Pyro´s little gang, as ephemeral as teenage friendships tended to be these days, must have cost her quite some effort and coming to him even more so, if he rethought their recent encounters during which he had been nothing but a threat to her and her friends. He could tell from the way her eyes were scanning the room that she was more nervous than she was willing to admit. Her hands were toying around with her necklace uneasily. Since he had returned it to her, she was clutching it in her hands.

He slowly sorrounded the desk and sat down again, looking her in the eyes, one eyebrow arched questioningly. Why had she come?

She met his gaze bravely and opened and closed her mouth ere she found a way to start. "I... it´s difficult where to begin." she said a little hastily. "I´m not even sure if I did the right thing by coming here."

"Do we ever know whether the things we do are right, before we have done them?" Erik gave back in return. As soon as these words had escaped him, he wondered why he had said them. This sounded not much like the man he had been, the mutant who had always been sure of the trueness of his cause. He brushed his thoughts aside. Reassuring the girl had nothing to do with giving in to principles that were not his own. He could deal with words, persuade people, he at least should know!

She kept silent for another few seconds, then she started.

"I saw what happened in that night on Alcatraz. I was there." Erik scowled. He was sure she had not been among the mutants of his Brotherhood then. None of them had been that young, at least nobody he knew of. He propped onto his ellbows and put his fingers together. "Go on."

"You destroyed the laboratories, but... that wasn´t all." She paused. "Nobody knew, not even you... but there was not just this one laboratory on the island. I was there. I and others. There were rooms below the surface. A cellar where they kept us."

Erik´s eyes narrowed. Was she lying? No, something told him she wasn´t. How had it been possible he had not known?

"Us?" he asked. "Who is us?"

"Me and 9 other mutants. All of them between 14 and 20. In the night the laboratories were destroyed, a part of the wall was blown away and I and two others managed to escape."

"You were a prisoner then? Who kept you?"

"I never saw the head of them, only the guards." Shade answered. "Since they caught me, I never heard the name of the main boss behind it all."

She went on, told him she had been caught by two men while using her mutation to sneak into a supermarket at night. She had been homeless, hungry, not had a proper meal for days. She and her companions, two mutants about her age, homeless like herself, had simply been looking for some food and a warm place for the night. She would not tell him anything about her family and he didn´t press on the matter. She had never seen the two men before nor after. They had taken her away anaesthesizing her by pressing something to her mouth and nose. When she had come to her senses again she had found herself in a windowless room.

She had been scared, had screamed and no one had answered her for what seemed like hours. When she had been weary of hearing her own screams of fear and fury, a man and a woman had entered the room. She could not tell much about their outer appearances but from the description she gave on them, Erik concluded they had been army officials. Shade´s voice had become steadier when she told him the two strangers had regarded her almost with respect. They had made her believe she could be happy they had picked her up, gotten her away from her miserable life on the streets. Their words had sounded inviting at first. The offer of a home, respect of her mutancy... but quickly the tide had turned. Surely she had heard of the Cure they had asked her and she had nodded. And surely did she know that although they did not share the common prejudices against mutants (at this, Erik snorted inwardly) there were mutants who meant a threat to humankind. Mutants who were terrorists. Erik was almost sure his name had been mentioned, but didn´t ask. The two army officials had then told Shade that, beyond a roof over her head, a warm bed and food they wanted to offer her even more. Security from the harassment some humans were showing towards mutants. "You would be safe" Shade recorded the words of the man whose name she had never grown to know. "We need the support of mutants. We have seen how useful you could be for us. As a spy."

The sly words left no doubt to the fact they had been no offer... but an order. No way out.

She had not been willing to give in at once. The windowless room had frightened her. The narrowness of the walls had made her nervous. "Where are the others?" she had asked. "Where are my friends?"

"They are here." the woman had answered. "They are here within these walls, don´t worry about them, they are fine and we will offer them the same as we offer you now. You only need to agree."

She had felt a slight threat going along with those words. "I... I´ve lived on my own for quite a time." she had replied to their unmoving faces. "I... I don´t think I´d like that."

The woman had shifted her position, come a little closer, her smile was false. "We talked about the Cure, didn´t we?" Shade had nodded slowly. "If you do not cooperate, we have to suggest you have something up in your sleeve. We do not even know you, little one. You could be alligned to the terrorist mutants, couldn´t you?" She had told them this was a lie, that she had never had to do with any terrorists. They had smiled but obviously not listened. "Well, then there is nothing for you to fear isn´t it?"

They had again told her how important it was to have spies against the ´bad´ mutants, they had again assured her that there was nothing for her to fear. For a girl trapped in a windowless room, separated from her friends with two army officials to corner her, this had not been an easy thing to believe, Erik thought, anger welling up inside him with every word Shade spoke.

"They gave me this." she said and held the necklace a little higher. "They said it was a sign. That those who wore it, would be recognized. That whenever there was an uproar, whenever mutants were arrested, the police and the army would recognize us. Would not harm us."

"If you joined them."

She nodded.

"And you did join them, didn´t you?"

She nodded again. "I didn´t know what to do. It didn´t sound too bad after all. A roof over your had and things. Regular meals. It seemed like... home.. almost. At least they made me believe it was."

"They mentioned the Cure." Erik said calmly. "What about that?"

"That was the part I didn´t like..." Shade continued. "They said the Cure was for those mutants that were a danger. That it took away their powers. They gave me a choice."

Erik did not press any further. He knew what their ´choice´ had been. Work as a spy or be ´cured´.

"I see."

She shook her head. "I... I told them I didn´t want that. I was angry and then I told them I had been alone for so long I didn´t care if they made me take the cure... I mean, it´s a cool thing to do... being invisible and stuff... but... I wanted to make them know they can´t force me to do what I don´t want to."

However, she had not been successful, she had not been given any choice. The nameless woman had smiled at her words and anger, she had told her with a smile that she was to remember she was not the only one in their service. She had reminded Shade she had not been the only one who had been brought to this place. What about her friends? Would they accept a loss of their powers so easily?

The words had been a threat and clearly so. She had thought to have power over them, she had thought she had still had a free will, to cooperate or not to. Now she found it was not just about her. It was about her friends. About the two she had been with. Jacky, the 17 year old that could shoot laser beams from her hands and Rascal an 11 year old youngster with the ability to run faster than the wind. They would never meet her eyes again if she was responsible for their powers being taken from them. And they would do this. They would ´cure´ her friends if she did not cooperate. They had never said so directly, but this terrible promise had been evident in their eyes and smile.

Shade had been talking for some minutes now and fell silent for a moment, her throat becoming hoarse from talking. Erik rose and walked over to the counter again, taking out another glass and a bottle of water. He stepped next to her seat and poured the water, then stood his back to the desk, his arms crossed and urged her to speak on. "What happened then?"

"It was about what they told me would happen." Shade continued her report. "I got regular meals, had a bed of my own which was nice... I can´t remember having had an own bed before that... and there were other mutants around my age there, too. I even met Jacky again, but kept asking for Rascal. They sent us on little missions, nothing big really. Made us observe public places for mutant activities and sent us to places where they thought mutants would meet. They treated us well. Once I and another one from our group got involved in some trouble. The police were storming a mutant meeting and we were scared they would round us up as well, but when they saw out necklaces they let us go. No mutant ever got to know we were traitors, but wearing the sun was always a ...protection... that felt bad."

Wearing the sun... dark memories rose in Erik´s mind. He had seen a time when people who were different had been marked with stars, not suns, times when wearing those stars had meant percecution... eventually death, not protection. The images were still similar and it made him feel sick.

"I felt bad ... somehow..." Shade went on. "But I was treated well, so I did what they made me do. I spied for them... and I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought those mutants I was spying on were... like... terrorists. Me and my group were beginning to feel proud of what we did. We were some sort of elite, see?" She was giving him a rather fearful glance, scared he would react with anger, but Erik stayed calm although his inside looked very different.

"Some sort of elite" was all he said with a voice bereft of emotion while massaging his right temple with his fingers.

She nodded. "Yes. We were all scared of what they told us. That the bad mutants were a threat. That they killed whoever was in their way. We believed them. They gave us food and a place to stay, see? We didn´t like the whole cure threat thingy, but we didn´t... well, we didn´t think about that much." She shrugged. "One day me and a friend from the Sun were sent after someone they thought was a mutant. We followed him and reported him. I had followed the man into a building... I can´t even remember what it was... the man was stealing something. They had told me that they kept important documents there... about the cure. So I became invisible and sneaked in right after him. Inside he changed... he was a shapeshifter. I reported the mutant and left. Later I found that it was a woman they had been looking for."

Mystique. Erik had wondered how they had caught her. Mystique was smart and in combat almost noone was a match to her. So it had been a mutant that had betrayed her. It was hard for him not to show any emotions.

The children of the Sun, as the mutants had called themselves with their own little pride had been proud of what they had achieved. Pushing the threat of the cure far away they had only seen the ´service´ they were doing and the reward they had been offered for it. Help mutants and humans, get a bed and food. They had not gotten much news, they had not been told that there had been uproars because of the cure. The name Magneto had been mentioned several times to them and they had spoken his name in fear. The world black and white for them. Until, one day, Shade had been tired of the vague answers she got when asking about her little friend Rascal. She had used her mutancy to sneak into the headquarters one night. She had found the file that read the words that had changed everything: _Mutant no. 45 880, ´Rascal´/ age: 11 / status: cured / St. Peter´s orphanage, New York._

Since that night she had seen that nothing about what they had told her had been right. It had been a lie. She had been supportive, she had helped, she had spied and yet they had taken away Rascal´s powers. From that day her cooperation had been a double game. She had begun to hold back information, she had started to look out for mutants she could join, she had kept her eyes open for a possibility to escape. She could not run away during her missions. All the time, others if the team would be around, humans that were (as she now saw it) observing the mutant teenagers like men would look after police dogs. They had never discovered her lack of loyality and then.. a few days later Magneto and his Brotherhood had attacked the island. In the middle of the night she had climbed out through the hole in the wall and had somehow managed to escape. She could not even remember how. All she knew was that she was suddenly running along a scattered troop of mutants abandoning their fallen leader. One of the fugitives had been Pyro...

Her hopes had been high when she had joined his little scattered gang that was just about to form. She had told him what she knew, thinking he would make an effort to free her friends. He had delayed her, told her it was more important to plan things, to gather others, to show people that the brotherhood of mutants, as he had called it, had a new head. Erik chuckled when she had arrived at that point and she looked up, irritated before she went on. She had lived in fear, scared the head of the Sun could find her, force her back... force her to take the Cure. She didn´t want to. She had kept her necklace, hoping that if they would catch her in the end she would be able to find a believable story to explain her absence. If she still wore the Sun they might take her in again and not force the Cure upon her.

Then, in the second night, she had gotten into contact with Think, an 18 year old telepath, one of their group. They had been loose friends and even though she felt all else had failed, he did not betray her. He had let her know that the Sun was thinking she had been killed during Magneto´s assault. She, in return had promised him to do everything possible to free him and the others. It had stayed no more than a promise ever since. Pyro had shown no interest in her plans. Instead he had done everything to enlarge their group, to increase his power... he had told her they would come back to freeing the children of the Sun... but later. Not yet. This was a matter that was simply not that important right now he had told her.

"I thought John was different." she said. "I thought he was cool, he would help me freeing my friends. But he´s just a prat."

"Hm..." Erik, who had by now returned to his own chair, lifted one eyebrow in slight amusement. "A prat, indeed."

Shade sighed and held her eyes low as if scanning the floor to her feet. "Can I stay?"

Erik quirked an eyebrow. "Hm?"

She lifted her eyes and met his gaze, now appearing to be slightly annoyed. "Can I stay?" Her voice betrayed her. She was slightly scared and very intimidated. Erik couldn´t help but scowl at himself. Since when had Magneto needed to show his power by scaring teens?

Then he smiled. "How can I be sure you´re no longer a spy? How should I know it´s a good thing to take you in?" She looked at him, no muscle in her face betraying her emotions. "Do we ever know whether the things we do are right, before we have done them?"

"Touché" he replied.

He had already made his decision. Too many mutants had already suffered. There had been a day long ago when he had sworn to himself that he would endure the suffering of no other mutant child. He did not dare think about the numbers of mutant children he had not kept his promise for. He had failed in the past. He would not fail again.

"Welcome to the Brotherhood." he said.


	19. Risks to be taken

**Author´s note:**

_Five reviews, yay :-) So here you go, another chappy for you_.

**AngelofSnow:** Thank you. Happy you like Shade´s backstory. It was a little hard to figure that out. Gave me quite some thinking. Yeah, he begins to regret things it seems. And he´s such a nice guy. (agrees)

**2wingo:** Yes, your theory sounds very plausible. So, let´s see what effects it has on Erik.

**KumadaPuma:** The less darker side. I like that ;-) Sorry for the delay in updating, this is not sooo frequently after all. Thanks for wishing luck :-)

**Meow:** Good point (lol) Thank you.

**Emperor K. Rool:** Maybe... who knows... Erik wouldn´t be Erik if he´d let Pyro do his job would he?

**Chapter 19)**

**Risks to be taken**

What he had said to Shade had been more impulse than rationality. Or habit_? ´Welcome to the Brotherhood´_. A phrase he had used several times over the last few years. He had always loved the reactions of the mutants he had adressed these words to. Silent smiles, eyes full of determination and pride for having been found valuable enough to be welcomed into Magneto´s ranks. Although there had been only few he had ever allowed into his inner circle. _´Welcome to the Brotherhood_´. It had been a phrase, but when he had said it to Shade, when he had uttered those well known words... he had meant it. With every word he had begun to realize that this was what he truly wanted. The Brotherhood had been his life´s work. Starting small it had grown into something that resembled a partisan army, before the catastrophe at Alcatraz had made its ranks crumble to ashes. When he had accepted Shade´s request, he had known there was no other aim for him...no other goal to his life than fight for his brothers and sisters that were superior to the average _homo sapiens_. He needed to get his old friends and supporters back together. He was powerful, yes, powerful again, but as a group mutants were stronger, more would listen, he knew... more would fear them, a penetrating little voice in the back of his mind added to his thoughts. Fear. Oh yes, humans had always feared what they didn´t understand. They had still not understood how foolish it was to fear him.. to fear his Brotherhood. Fear was foolish, was not necessary, should not play a role in these times. He had always wanted to end fear. Why didn´t they understand?

He was content to get back to action. Shade´s story had made him feel uneasy and angry. The governent was using mutants against mutants and he did not for a second believe the spying those kids had been trained for, the information Shade and her fellows had retreived were used solely against what government officials called ´mutat terrorism´. Noble ideals, make humans safe, keep them from harm, from _the other_. For Erik this sounded just as hypocritical as any idea that resulted from fear of a minority. The end justifies the means, he thought bitterly. However, before he could even consider a plan to free Shade´s friends, he needed backing. He would not head off in a rush again as he had done the night before.

By the afternoon of the next day he had continued sorting his files and now had at least an idea about how many of his shattered Brotherhood he could still count on. The result had been daunting. He had seen many of his mutants die, he himself had waited while they were falling, killed or cured for the guards at Alcatraz had been armed with both kinds of ammunitions. Those that had been hit by the poison would be either recovering or soon would, many of them, doubtlessly had been arrested and would not see the outside of a prison for quite a time. He could not count on them. And then there were those who might not answer to his summoning at all, after all that had happened. He remembered how he had held Pyro back, how he had yelled to him that he was to wait for the Pawns to serve their purpose... to fall... to be sacrificed to clear the way for them. How many, he wondered, would stand up for Magneto again? The man for whom they had been not ´Gods among insects´ as he had made them believe... but pawns? And then there were the countless mutants which had been victims to the Phoenix. He could hardly bear thinking about Jean Grey. For an instant he saw her as the young kid she had once been. Mustering him with her eyes narrowed, persuaded noone could understand what it was to be a mutant. Maybe she had been right. Maybe noone had really understood what it meant to be a mutant...like her.

However, there had been success which made the day not seem totally wasted. He had managed to get into contact with James Madrox, Multiple Man and he had seemed willing to return to the Brotherhood, announcing his arrival at the lair within the next couple of days. He had been on the run after Alcatraz, fooling the police throughout the States putting the cops and military off the scent by re-appearing in several States between New York State and Maine...at the same time. He would arrive at the lair in some time. For a short moment Erik had felt unsure whether James was still trustworthy but had decided he had to risk it. Times were hard and it was even harder to distinguish between friend and foe as he had grown to know these last painful days. Multiple Man had told him there were some mutants he knew that might feel interested in joining the team, too. More risk ahead, more risks to be taken.

He hoped for another few recruits from the news that were currently spreading throughout the country. There were quite a few mutants of his shattered army who knew about the lair´s whereabouts. He hoped at least some would have seen the news, heard that he had been spotted and draw the right conclusion: that Magneto had not been knocked down permanently but had returned and that he was still eager for action to improve the situation of mutants on the planet. It would take some time to rebuild the network, but it had already started.

He had left Pyro´s room to Shade. The boy had not had many belongings anyways and Erik had discovered he had taken most of it with him to where ever he had gone so he did not expect John to return for staying. Shade, too, had not had much to store, almost nothing apart from a black rucksack which could not contain more than a few clothes and personal belongings. She had moved into her new room with silent gratefulness, still too intimidated to say much, but Erik had seen her eyes shine. He had then realized that this girl might not have had a room of her own for quite a while. Maybe never. It felt good to make this stranded teen feel comfortable.

Much like her mutation, Shade hardly made herself be noticed. Whether it was a result from all the time she had spent literally in hiding or whether it was simply a character trade Erik could not tell, but she seemed much more uncomplicated than she had seemed when Pyro had been around. No longer sorrounded by her young mutant buddies, she was quiet, almost shy. She had stayed in her room the whole last evening and much of the next morning and day. Erik recalled having seen her once or twice, he had offered her to help herself to something to eat and drink from the kitchen and she had nodded to his words. Apart from that he had not seen much of her being busy himself.

When Erik set his papers aside it was around 4 pm already. He felt tired but good. Things were getting better again, the start had been made, soon the Brotherhood would be more than its head again. He left his study and entered the kitchen, intending to have a cup of coffee or two. He could hear the TV set was switched on and peered around the doorframe, half expecting to see Mystique there, half prepared to leave on the spot if he did. He wasn´t in the mood of arguing with her again. He knew she was around the lair but he was content with not having crossed paths with her today. She had tended to give him a hard time in the past when she had felt mistreated and she had never thought to have more reason to be cross with him than now, so he thought the best way of dealing with her was avoiding her... at least for now.

However, it wasn´t Mystique, it was Shade. The girl was sitting on the carpet, her back leaned against the sofa, watching something that looked a lot like one of those dull and stupid soap operas today´s teenagers seemed to love so much.

Erik stepped behind the sofa, gave the TV screen a disapproving look and said: "With a good deal of what humankind calls ´world literature´ packed in this room, it seems rather strange one should watch nonsense like this."

Shade had obviously not noticed him entering the room and flinched at his words. She turned her head and faced him. "I... uhm...sorry, I just came in and..." There. Well done, Erik, he told himself. He had scared her and it would take him some time to undo the damage.

"Never worry." he gave back, hiding his disapproval with himself, smiling slightly. "You can watch TV if you like, although books would be a better way to fill a young mind."

She nodded slowly watching him in a way that bore some resemblance to a deer watching a wolf. He ignored it, but felt sadness rise inside him. What had become of him? A mutant feared by his own kind? Feared by the ones he wished to protect?

"Are you hungry?" he continued. "I hope you helped yourself to some food. There should be something left in the fridge."

"Actually... no, there wasn´t much left. But I found some toast."

Erik sighed. Right. He had noticed days ago that there was not much to eat left. He had intended to send Pyro to buy some groceries and had forgotten about it. He had worked most of the day and by now he realized that he himself was quite hungry.

"Was there?" he simply replied. "Well...it´s a weekday and it´s still afternoon. What about getting some decent food? As you said the fridge is nearly empty and you might understand that I can not simply show up in the next supermarket."

She looked at him in a way that clearly told him she had expected nothing like that. "Okay..." she then said a little hesitantly. "I could do that."

Erik took out his wallet, hesitated for a moment and then handed her a fifty dollar note. Risks to be taken, he thought. She just shook her head, smiling for the first time. "No. I won´t need that. I can make myself invisible, you know, noone ever noticed when I..."

He raised an eyebrow, unsmiling. "You will." he said and reached for her hand over the sofa to hand her the money. "Don´t act like that." he then added. "You shouldn´t use your mutation in such an unworthy way. You´re superior to them, not simply a thief with some extraordinary assistance."

She scowled, looked at the money and nodded, before she got to her feet and put the money into the pocket of her jeans. She attempted to leave the room when something sprang to Erik´s mind. He didn´t like the idea at all, but decided Shade had nothing to do with his and Mystique´s differences.

"Go, ask Mystique to take you to the coast with the speedboat." he said.

Shade gave him a look over her shoulder. "That... uhm.. won´t be necessary. I can make it on my own."

He gave her a questioning look. "Being a member of the Brotherhood does not give you the permission of using the boats at will. I only have two of them." He said with an amused smirk.

"Oh... no." she gave back with big eyes. "No. I... when I become invisible I´m insensible to any material. I´ll just move... over the water."

He was astonished and arched an eyebrow at her. "What a talent." he said and noticed she was blushing slightly from the compliment. Erik nodded at her. "And now off you go. I could use a decent supper as well." She left.

Only when he turned around he saw Mystique standing in the doorframe that led to the kitchen. She looked at him without a word. He decided to let her know he would not avoid her, stepped into the kitchen and walked past her. "Erik." He halted and turned around to face her.

"It´s one thing what you did to me..." she focussed him with her yellow eyes. "But I tell you do not make the same mistake again. It wouldn´t improve your health."


	20. Pepperoni pizza

**Author´s note:**

_Wooot, the number of reviews for this story is nearing the magical no. 100. yay :-) I feel so loved! And inspired. I wrote nearly four pages for my paper today... and another chappy for you guys._

_Very interesting reviews indeed. I got two different interpretations for Mystique´s last sentence in chapter 19... interpretations I had not intended like that, but interesting nonetheless. It shows just how differently one can read a story... and be it just a simply fanfiction scribbled by someone like me._

**2wingo:** Hm... interpretation no.1. An admission of forgiveness? Interesting. I didn´t think about it that way, but it´s defenitely an interesting way to view her words. And how do we ever know what´s going on in Mystique´s mind? She´s been acting a little contradictory in this story before so... who knows?

**AngelofSnow:** Thanks :-) Interpretation no. 2: Mystique being jealous and threatens Erik for flirting with Shade. Uhm... I must say I didn´t think it that way either but okay, I can see why you´d think that, too. Still, no. I´d call it reassuring rather than flirting. Besides the lack of lovelife Erik has been exposed to in this story so far, (I send him over to your awesome fics at times to keep him in shape ;-) ) Shade´s 15 so... nope. Not really. But I agree with him being a charmer a girl might feel attracted to. Imagine to be in her boots, who wouldn´t blush?

**Meow:** Yep, somewhat of a daily life and more of that to come in the new chapter. It´s somehow quite hard to write that. So I´m glad you liked it.

**Eternal E**: Wow, nice comparison, thanks a lot. Good point about Shade´s powers by the way. Very well observed ;-) However when becoming invisible she becomes insensible only to what is around her not what is connected to her body. She can walk over the water, she could even walk through it, but the necklace was around her neck and thus she could be effected by it. Being insensible to anything she was wearing would be rather annoying for her as she´d have to get dressed again every time she becomes visible.

**Jacky:** Hey, another new reviewer! (beams) As I said before, you made my day when I opened my inbox this morning so thank you so much for your nice reviews and I hope you enjoy the chapters you´ve not read so far, too. What a compliment, staying up till midnight to read! Awww, thanks a lot again:-)

**Chapter 20)**

**Pepperoni pizza**

There had been a barely veiled threat in Mystiques words. She had not said so directly but Erik knew what they had implied: _Do it again and I´ll kill you_. Something inside Erik had leapt at her words, spoken in a cool way. She had tried to keep them free of emotion and she had succeeded. She had left him questioning what she had meant. He knew her... or rather, there had been a time when he had thought he knew her... or something that came close to that. He knew she was vengeful, he knew she was none to forgive easily. Just like himself she had suffered as a child and resulting from that was a scepticism and even slight hostility against almost anyone... Erik had been an exception for her once. He wasn´t anymore he thought.

Still, she had kept him wondering what exactly she had been referring to. For a short moment he had thought she had referred to the incident on the cargo. _Do it again and I´ll kill you. I let you know I might forgive but never forget._ For an instant he had felt his heart warm at her words, until he had seen the cold gaze in her yellow eyes that spoke hatred. _No. Don´t you dare to touch me ever again. _

She had been referring to the girl – Shade - and Erik understood why she had. Shade was a runaway, a homeless teenage girl, very much like Mystique had been when Erik had taken her in all those years ago. Mystique, too, had trusted noone back then... until Erik had helped her. Until Erik had beaten up those bullies. She had not asked him to help her, she had not even seen him approach in her fear and attempt to appear small... so small those boys might loose their interest in her and just turn away. Erik had helped her without asking who she was where she came from... she had trusted him from that very moment... every minute of her life... until he had abandoned her. Her eyes had been clear with the message she intended to convey: _You´re a liar, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr. I trusted you and you abandoned me. If ever I see you do the same you did to me, if ever you do the same to that runaway, I´ll kill you. Nothing will hold me back. _

It had been a silent oath. He was sure she was intent on keeping it. She would be waiting. Erik also knew that this promise, this threat had nothing to do with what Mystique thought about Shade. Most likely she didn´t even care about the girl in any way. But that, too, was just something Mystique would do. She hated him for what he had done and if she threatened to kill him so if he did anything like this to any other mutant who trusted him, she would have her revenge. It was a deal. Seeing Erik walk away from her had hurt her more than anything, more than any physical pain. But even this feeling was her own. Hers, no one other´s. The feeling of Magneto walking away. No one else should have that privilege, the privilege of letting been down by him like this, his eyes so full of shock and despair when he had turned his gaze from her, just as noone else had ever had the privilege of being his most trusted ally...

When he heard the front door open, it was already past seven p.m. He placed the book he had read on the table and got up. Walking over to the kitchen he could see Shade place a huge plastic bag on the kitchen counter with a bang that made his lips curve in disapprovement. "Judging from the weight of that bag we should be provided for the next days." he announced when coming to a halt in the door frame, leaning against it, feeling the cool metal through his shirt. Her gaze still had something of a prey´s fear in it, but she was obviously trying to conquer it. "I...wasn´t sure what to buy so... I just thought I buy stuff almost everybody likes."

He raised an eyebrow in amusement at her still evident nervousness, still feeling bad about having scared her several times. It must have cost her a lot to come here and ask him to stay. She had to value her friends like a family if she dared asking someone she feared to help her free them.

Shade was rummaging through her jeans pocket and when she got her hand out again and opened it, he saw she had a number of smaller banknotes in it crumpled together in a sort of ball. Hastily she attempted to flatten them before she handed them to him. "I didn´t need all of it." she said. "And I didn´t steal anything." She sounded almost a little proud with herself under the slight quiver in her voice. Erik decided to ignore her uneasiness. He could hardly blame her for it. "Good." he said. "And it wasn´t that hard or was it?"

He walked over to the counter and had a look inside the bag. A number of food boxes. Three American Pizzas, half a dozen coke bottles, a package or two of noodles, some instant hamburgers...in other words: fastfood. Nothing to make a decent, civilized supper of. "Hm..."

"I wasn´t sure what to buy, so..."

He chuckled. "Don´t worry, Shade. Only I wonder how you teenagers ever grow eating nothing that fast food." She looked stricken at his words and he regretted them at once and shook his head. "Don´t listen to what I say." he said. "Let´s get something of that ready. I´m hungry."

30 minutes later and feeling a lot less hungry than he had before, Erik had too admit that he had underestimated deep frozen pepperoni pizza. That stuff hadn´t been as bad as he had thought it would be. They had stayed in the kitchen and eaten two of the three pizzas as Shade was obviously intent on leaving one to Mystique who hadn´t joined their supper yet. However, when not much was left, the blue shape shifter entered the kitchen, looked at the few pieces that were left and made a face that was a mix of looking bored and appaled.

"Oh. I didn´t know there was a cozy little family meeting" she said in a low voice not even stopping in her path. Shade looked confused, but gained some courage to say: "There´s enough left, so if you´re hungry I could..."

Now Mystique did stop. "Oh, thanks a lot, little girl, but it might be best for all of us if Magneto and I" and she stressed the usage of his mutant name "avoided each others comany whenever possible." With that she left for the living room. For a moment Erik was close to getting up to follow her and tell her where her place was, but he refused the urge of doing so and settled for giving her back a cold glance. He equally ignored the question in Shade´s eyes.

"Do you like your room?" he said to change the topic.

She nodded. "Yes, it´s... nice. A little dark maybe, but I´m fine with that."

He smiled. "Good to know. As you wish to stay this is your home now. Your room. Make yourself feel comfortable."

She nodded shily, smiling a little. "Thanks."

There was an awkward silence between them until Shade had finished her pizza. "What about that necklace of yours?" Erik asked when the girl intended to get up and carry her plate to the counter. "Do you still have it?" Again she nodded and reached into her pocket. "The chain is broken" she said, looking at him. Yes, he had broken the chain two nights before when Shade and her little watery friend had attempted to attack him. "Could you...maybe repair it?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I could but I won´t" he said. "Why are you still carrying this around with you?" She shrugged. "Well, it´s... if I get caught, they won´t treat me like a..."

"Like the mutant terrorist they think all mutants are involved with?" he had to bite back a bitter chuckle. "Please, my dear girl, let me assure you this won´t hold them back." He extended his hand and the necklace flew into his hand. "This." he said. "is not to benifit you, but to brand you. To mark you." He couldn´t help his voice beginning to sound bitter. Yes, this was always the first step. Mark those that are different from you, be it with suns or stars or eventually ... numbers burned into your arms. "This thing lets them know you are different from them. To be feared." She just looked at him and he knew she had never considered things that way. "I have seen much in my life." He placed the necklace on the table before him, the metal of the little sun pendant reflecting the light of the lamp. "Too much to believe that marking those different from those in power would ever be a benefit for the minority."

She lowered her gaze, looking at the necklace, saying nothing.

"Come here." he said waving his hand at her, letting the kitchen chair move aside so she could sit. Hesitantly she followed his words. He looked at her, he could feel her being uncomfortable having her gaze locked with his but didn´t break the eye contact. "You asked me if you could stay and I told you, you could. You´re one of us now, if you will. You´re with me and those that are with me I will protect. Let´s put your fear to an end. You _are_ afraid, aren´t you?"

She nodded slightly. He nodded in return and let the necklace hover between the two of them. "End this fear." he said. "Tell me to and I will. You´re free. You´re a mutant. You should be proud of it, not be branded for it." The necklace was still hovering between them, a last border, a last restriction between Shade´s old fears and her new hopes. He knew what she would ask him to do, if she really did. Agreeing to his promise would mean to really join him. To be free. Free from fear. He could see she was struggling with herself, but he could also see a spark of pride and hope enter her eyes.

"Do it." she whispered.

A flick of his eye was all. The metal sun was crushed beyond repair.


	21. Kindling trust

_I´m back with a new chapter for you to read and review. Phew, that one was not easy to write, so I hope you like it. _

**2wingo:** Thanks four your help on Erik´s background. Having someone who knows the comics as well as you do to advise me really means a lot to me. :-) I was wondering about him being Jewish, too, as in the first movie you can clearly see his yellow Star of David on his jacket and the clothes of his parents when they are dragged into the camp.

**AngelofSnow:** Aww, thanks for the congrats, Angel. I can´t believe how long this story has become, either. It started as a rather small idea and now I seem incapable of stopping to write it. Come on, your story deserves much more credit! Glad you liked the intereaction of Magneto and Shade in this chapter. It´s kinda hard to write Erik when Shade´s around. I already have the feeling she somehow changes his behavior slightly. Hope that doesn´t come along as off character.

**KumadaPuma:** I´m quite excited how you´ll like the interaction between Erik and Mystique in this chapter. And well, the thing with him crushing her necklace was an idea that had lurked around my mind for quite some chappies. Glad you approve of that. :)

**Meow**: Thanks. Glad to see you liked the symbolism thingy here. As for the brotherhood: wait and see. ;-)

**Eternal E**: Again, interesting question. It´s great to see people get involved with the story. Okay, so Shade´s powers are in a way similar to Kitty, I agree, only Kitty can control passing through things more actively than Shade can as A) Shade needs to become invisible to walk through material and B) this aspect of her power is limited. Water does not affect her when she is invisible, she can move rather freely once she becomes invisible, it´s not exatly like flying it´s rather like walking on elements other than earth, like water e.g. (and to a certain hight also on air) as she does when leaving the lair to buy food. Shade can walk through walls but only if she is invisible and she can just move through things ahead of her, not under of above her so she wouldn´t be able to pass through a floor or something as Kitty can. And no, whenever she was stealing things, she would have to tug them under her jacket or something as this is the only way of ´making things invisible´.

**Chapter 21**

**Kindling trust**

Erik had watched the girl closely when he had crushed the pendant and in her eyes he had read pretty much what he had expected to see there: a wild mix of emotions, a sharing of relief, tension, curiosity and still a little bit of fear and shyness lurking somewhere in the back of her gaze, now mingling slightly with something he had not seen there before: respect and something that he might interpret as the very softest traits of a beginning bond of trust. For a short moment he had to fight the urge to break their eye contact. He had seen this trust, this respect – faint as it might be in the girl´s eyes yet – in so many other pairs of eyes. Some of them he had seen broken, staring into emptiness when he had staggered away over the debris at Alcatraz. Trust unfullfilled, respect that he had proven unworthy of.

Shade looked at the destroyed necklace for a short moment and then turned her eyes away from it. She was beginning to take another step, Erik knew. This, too, was a moment he had seen many times before.

"I think I´ll go to my room now, can I?" Her eyes, still shy, met his again.

He nodded. "Yes."

She got up again, but turned around when she had already reached the door leading to the corridor. He waited for her to speak the first words, seeing she was somewhat hesitating.

"What about my friends?" she asked. "I mean, will you...?"

"Yes, I will see what I can do for them." he answered, finding he had not thought about these poor creatures all evening. His first steps to reform the Brotherhood had occupied his mind and shortly kept it away from Shade´s request. "I will need your help, Shade." he said.

"My help?"

"Yes." He got up to place his empty plate on the counter. "First I need to find out where they are now. It seems unlikely to me they are still on Alcatraz island."

Erik could see the girl´s eyes flicker. "But... how can we ever find them if they have been taken away?"

"You told me about this friend of yours. The telepath."

"Think."

"Think, yes." He nodded. "He could be our link to your friends. He might pass information about your friends´ whereabouts to us. You told me he let you know the others thought you were dead?"

"He did, yes" Shade nodded slightly. "But I am no telepath myself. He can read my mind, but only when he wants to. At any other time I have no contact with him. Only when he... reads my mind and then I can ... like... hear his voice in my head or something. It´s like I feel he´s sneaking around in my head and this was also how he let me know what the others were thinking about what had happened to me."

_Sneaking around in her head_. Erik couldn´t abide a smile. He knew perfectly well what Shade was thinking. To those who knew the feeling of a telepath reading one´s mind, it was so easily to detect. Charles had seldomly intruded his thoughts, but Erik had felt it on the rare occasions when he had done so. For a moment a memory snapped back to his mind. Him standing on a light flooded corridor, shortly after he had left the hearing, shortly after he had listened to Senator Kelly talking away every reason from Jean Grey´s presentation about mutants. "_Are you sneaking around in here, Charles_?" he had asked his old friend without turning around, sensing his telepathy, tapping his finger slightly to his temple...

"When did he last get into contact with you?" he asked in a low voice, storing the memory away.

She seemed to think hard. "Yesterday ... shortly before I arrived here."

"Good. Be wary, Shade. When next time you feel his telepathy think a question. Make him tell you where they are. Then we can make the next step."

She seemed a little disappointed, but nodded and he nodded at her in a good natured way: "Off you go." he said and she left.

His eyes found the crushed pendant which was still lying on the table in front of him. He let it hover into the air, simply because he was enjoying the feel of metal answering to his call again. He had missed this so much. His lips curved into a smile.

"How long have you been standing there?" he said without turning his head, feeling the gaze of the blue shapeshifter like something physical. She didn´t answer to that, so he continued.

"I might need your help to free these young mutants", he went on, letting the necklace clatter onto the table again. While he was speaking this words he felt how hard it was to do so. In this moment he knew he was about to abandon a large bit of the pride he had not been willing to give away earlier. He couldn´t help but wonder.

"My help?" He could hardly tell whether her words were rather a question or an outcry. "You dare ask me to help you, Erik?" His smile vanished from his face when he turned to face her. "Yes." he said. "You returned to the Brotherhood and whatever grudges you hold against me does have nothing to do with the cause both of us have been following all these years."

She just stared at him, a blank look in her eyes that told him he had totally rendered her speechless which had hardly ever occured since he knew her.

"Help you." Her words sounded cold.

"Rather... it´s not helping me." he replied equally cold. "It´s freeing those mutants. They are used against our brothers, Raven and I will not suffer this. See my request as a request to help your fellow mutants if you can not bear the thought of aiding me." His voice had sounded emotionless at his harsh words, but his heart was pounding painfully when he said them. Her look, her demandour... all told him how much he had lost when he had abandoned Raven Darkholme... abandon... he didn´t like to put it that way... he had not abandoned her, she had been cared for, he had not abandoned Mystique, but left Raven Darkholme to her equals. "I don´t make you stay." he added in a low voice.

"No." she gave back. "But tell me Erik what choices did I have? Stay with... them? They treated me like a wild beast when I still was a mutant and not much better once the poison had gotten me. The only reason I did not kill you was that I somehow knew you, too, would recover. I´ve seen how they treat the mutants they capture Erik!" She had barely raised her voice. She had never done this when she had been very agitated... just like now. Like a wild cat her anger had shown rather in the way she held her body, the way her eyes were suddenly ablaze, the latent snarl that would creep into her voice. This was when she was dangerous. "As much as I hate you for what you did to me... if I want to help my brothers and sisters this means standing on Magneto´s side."

Her words evoked very ambivalent feelings. She had come back, yes, but not because of him, he knew now, just because of what they had tried to achieve all these years. She was still reasonable enough to acknowledge his abilities as a leader, as a persuader, as a fighter... but the rest was lost to them it seemed.

He simply nodded. He could count on her help. Like a reliable machine she would aid him. She would look at him blank eyed, the admiration, the love, the pride he had always read in them, gone forever, obeying his orders because their aims were the only thing that was now left for them to share. The _only_ thing they still shared. He felt his throat go tight at these thoughts. The harsh words that had been on the top of his tongue a second ago, ready to be thrown at her, were gone.

"You know I can not undo anything of what I did..." he said. "You know how much it pained me to see what happened, Mystique." She just stared at him. "But you also know I will not take back what I said. I abandoned a human, not a mutant. We are superior, you know this, but they are still the minority. Pity is a luxury that I can not allow into my ranks."

"Pity." she said lowering her eyes making the word sound unique spoken with her resonating voice.

"And _you_ know, Erik, I never forget."

"So do I." he said silently, their eyes locked, the atmosphere around them tingling in a way that could not only be blamed on the metal alone. After a moment, she broke their eye contact and started her way towards the door passing him silently. He stretched out his hand, letting it rest on her upper arm slightly. She didn´t pull back. "I need to be sure" he said. "I need to be sure I can rely on you." he said. "If not, I do not want you to take part in any other mission. You understand that, I know."

"As I said, it´s the cause Erik, not you." she avoided his eyes, staring into emptyness.

"Yes." he gave back. "And the Brotherhood wouldn´t be the same without my most trusted lieutenant."

Now she looked at him and at the first moment he was taken aback, as what he saw was something he had not seen with her since the day he had met her. A single tear had rolled down her blue scaled cheek, leaving a wet line on her skin, yet her eyes did not betray any emotion.

"Is this your way of saying sorry, Erik Lehnsherr?" she said coolly.

A sad smile entered his face without him being able to hide it

"As closely as it may get." he said.

She breathed in slowly as if trying to calm herself. "You´re a charmer, Erik." she then said. "You always were. "I do not know whether I am willing to let myself caught in your webs again." Her voice sounded cool, distant, but the touch of her scaled finger when she laid her hand on his to brush away his hand from her forearm was much softer. It didn´t betray anything of her being the fabulous combatant she was, it didn´t give away how hard she would use those hands to fight her enemies. Strong as the fangs of a wild cat. But her touch was soft. Surely much softer than she had intended.


	22. Capital fears

_First of all... SORRY! To all of you. I´m feeling really guilty towards all of my dear reviewers for having taken so much time to update. I´m quite busy with that stupid paper at the moment and being busy with that at times results in a minor writer´s block when it comes to writing fiction of any sort, so again: my humble apologies, guys! So, here, finally, is a new chapter for you. Not one of the longest for sure, but I promise the next update won´t take as long as this one! Seriously!_

_Wow, 104 reviews:D You´re awesome!_

**2wingo:** Yay, your review re-appeared! Nice to see you got the scene as I had intended it and honestly: who could be mad with Erik forever (speaking from a girl´s perspective here but whatever ;-))

**Eternal E:** Good to hear I didn´t strangle myself in a paradox somewhere, so thanks for letting me of the hook. ;-) I love your wine comparison! Thanks a lot for that! And... oh... so sorry... let me end your withdrawal symptoms:-D Here you go, hope you enjoy.

**Meow: **Uhum. Writing this tension is a lot of fun! Glad you liked it. :-)

**AngelofSnow:** Ah well, 101 is a cool number too, don´t you think Angel? ;-) Awww, people telling me my stories brought them to tears is one of the nicest compliments an amateur author like I am one can get. Thanks so much!

**KumaDaPuma:** A true charmer, yep, so how could anyone possible be cold towards an apology like that, crappy as it may be?

**XChocolateChipX: **Yay, another new reviewer:-D Great to read you like my story. And I have to say I´m really glad you like my portrayal of Mystique as I always think her being the most difficult character to write. Oh, and thanks to Angel and Kuma for promoting! You rock!

**Chapter 22)**

**Capital fears**

Another bad night´s sleep had followed their conversation that evening. No nightmares though, but the words he and Mystique had exchanged in the kitchen had kept him awake. This annoyed him. Rash and impulsive as his enemies had always seen him, Erik had always been a man who had valued his ratio above his emotion. He had seldomly acted from impulse, he had always acted on plan. He had always been convinced he was doing the right thing and had hardly known doubts on his actions as when he had been ready to carry them out, every bit of doubt had already been eliminated by rational thinking. Emotion was a luxury. Something not to be mingled with the Cause. Emotion blinded a determined man´s vision and mind. Emotion set free sadness and weakness... many of his willingness to feel affectionately had died long ago... choked and drowned on muddy grounds soaked with the water of pitiless rain...

All these years later, nothing had changed this. When he had turned his back on Raven, he had done this because he had felt... no, because he had known this was the only right thing for him to do. The mutual affection that had existed between him and her was a different realm... the blue scaled, beautiful shape shifter was different from the weak, naked _homo sapiens_ that had stared up at him from the metal floor. Two spheres, two worlds, he knew it had been best to keep them separate.

Still, in this night it was this well established system of ratio and emotion, the system that he had kept apart so well for most of his life, that had caused his insomnia. All efforts to distract his thoughts had failed, all attempts to busy his mind with what he deemed really important... rally the Brotherhood, find new recruits, think up a plan to free the Children of the Sun had been distracted by some blurry thought in the back of his head that had bothered him more than anything. There was no doubt to it. He didn´t know when it had happened, but lying on his back, his eyes staring into darkness, Erik Lehnsherr had to admit that his world had been shattered. There was no longer ratio on the one, emotion on the other hand. These two areas had mingled. They had mingled several times. The weak offer of apology he had given Mystique before he could hinder the words escape from him, his reaction back in the city when without hesitating he had struck down a young mutant to safe the life of a _homo sapien_ child... this and more. No more black and white, he mused. This whole world was slowly threatening to become an ocean of grey. He had a strong disaffirmation for this particular colour.

Nothing had happened until two days later. Apart from his efforts to recruit and re-activate, days had been dull. Mystique had showed up more frequently, but whenever she was present, her behaviour was cold and strictly professional. No smiles, no emotion conveyed through her eyes, no more of these small gestures that had escaped her now and then. She was cold and distant, but at least she did no longer avoid him. They worked together, but Erik had the dull feeling they were not one team, but two individuals with a common goal. The three of them ate together and besides Erik noticing that the girl, Shade, was slowly putting off her shyness, it made him feel both helpless and bitter to see no lack in Mystique´s cold mask towards himself.

It was afternoon and Mystique had left the lair for some hours, following some information she had found referring to a secret gathering of mutants that had been displayed on an online forum protected by various passwords. If this was no trap but indeed a gathering of likeminded mutants, they might lateron persuade some of these to join the team.

Erik had had another phone call with Multiple man who had announced his arrival for the following day and was just about to go back to his files, when Shade entered his study after knocking. He looked up.

"How can I help you, my dear?" he asked softly.

"He tried it again." Shade spluttered and after a scowl from Erik added: "Think. I could feel him in my head."

Erik got up immediatly. ´At last´, he thought. He had watched Shade these last two days and had noted her increasing restlessness which he could only explain resulting from the fact that she had still had no sign of contact from her telepath friend.

"Indeed?" he said. "What did he tell you?" With a movement of his right hand he moved one of the metal chairs for her to sit. She followed his invitation and pushed a loose strand of her dark hair from her face before she answered.

"He seemed irritated" she said. "In a hurry. As if he was afraid someone would catch him using his telepathy to communicate with me or anyone else." Shade scowled slightly. "I´m not sure if I understood everything he said, but he let me know they are in Washington, all of them."

Erik leaned back in his chair scowling slightly. Washington then, he thought. This meant they had taken the mutants across the whole continent. His suggestions had therefore proven to be correct. They must have discovered their hiding under the destroyed mutant laboratories was no longer safe. Had they been scared? Or were there other reasons behind it?

"Did he tell you anything more?"

Shade slowly shook her head. "He only said they had been taken to Washington D.C, but didn´t tell me an address or something." So, supposedly the government or whoever was the head of this mutant against mutant program did not trust their own weapons, Erik mused with a bitter smile. "Washington D.C that´s all he said... said they were sent on errands to observe more than ever before."

Erik nodded. "Good." he said and added when he saw the insecurity in Shade´s eyes. "At least now we have a point from where to start looking for your friends." He got up and smiled at her gently although inside of him he felt anger rise again. These children were captives and what was worse, they were used against their fellow mutants not only without the knowledge of mutantkind but also without the knowledge of humans. Any weakness the Children of the Sun would show, any mistake they might make in public, any small accidents that might occur because of them using their powers was another potential reason for humans to manifest their prejudices. Young mutants sneaking around, spying observing... all of this fitted only too well into the image too many _homo sapiens_ had of mutants.

He rounded the desk and the fear he saw in her eyes was for once not directed against him, but resulted from her fear for her friends. To look into this teenager´s eyes made his heart feel heavy. From an impulse he put his hand on her shoulder. "I gave you my promise, didn´t I?" he said and she nodded hastily. "I will not break it" he said and felt his heart become a little less heavy when he saw a new spark of hope light in her eyes. He turned away. "We have much to do" he said, changing the topic before this girl´s sadness could become a too strong bridge to his own past... his own fears...

"Soon, we will have other mutants to help us. And in a few days, we will have a plan how to help Think and the others." When he left his study and shot a short glance over his shoulder he caught her wiping a single tear from her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. He was sure she hadn´t noticed he had seen and decided to let her keep this illusion. Still, seeing this girl cry with fear brought something he had promised to himself long ago back to his mind. Something which he now knew he had failed: _This, he told himself, would be the last mutant child to cry over her existence. _Mystique hadn´t been the last mutant child to cry... Despite the soothing hum of metal the door radiated towards him before he opened it effortlessly, Erik suddenly felt weak.


	23. Distances

_So uhm... hooray for me. That update came a lot quicker than the last didn´t it? Which of course shouldn´t keep you guys from continuing to review chappy 22 ;-) I mean, you really make my days a lot brighter with your reviews, so be merciful with a poor university student being doomed to her computer most of the day. _

**Eternal E:** Now I feel truly flattered. You compared my portrayal of Magneto to Ian McKellen! Wow! Honestly! Now I feel good! You made me grin stupidly for a couple of hourse when I read that! So, here you are, another glass for you. :-)

**XChocolateChipX**: So glad you enjoy reading this. So here you go. A quick update.

**2wingo:** Yeah, something along that line, although we shouldn´t mention his age. He looks good for his age, doesn´t he? (grins fangirlishly)

**AngelofSnow:** Oh dear, i feel so sorry for you being in so much pain from your teeth, so I really hope I can cheer you up a little with yet another chapter. Get well again soon, will you? So, this chapter´s for you! I hope you´ll feel better after reading this.

**Chapter 23)**

**Distances**

When Erik Lehnsherr walked along the corridor, his boots echoing from the metal walls, he felt his old determination getting hold of him again. He had been forced to be idle for far too many days and if he had needed any other push to get back to work, it had been the look in Shade´s eyes which she thought he had not noticed. Tears. Soon she would no longer have to cry.

As he had expecte,d he found Mystique in the control room down the corridor. Although it might look like a dull place from outside, Magneto´s lair disposed of the most modern technology including a rather spacious room, referred to as the control room by most of them which came along with a number of high tech computers, TV sets that permanently monitored the most important news channels, phone stations and a radar to detect possible intruders nearing the lair. Apart from that, there were about a dozen screens that were connected to security cameras outside the lair. Magneto had never been the kind of person to trust humans too easily. If someone came here, he would know... at least if the control room was occupied. During the last couple of weeks the computers had been off, the cameras had been out and the radar had been out of use. With noone at the lair, there had been no need to monitor things. Then, when he had returned, Erik had seldomly come here. He preferred to observe things from his own study where he had his own computer, his own screen which was connected to the ones in the control centre so that by pushing a few keys he could easily call onto his screen what the cameras were monitoring anyways. And apart from that... the room was so full of technology that it emitted whole bunches of magnetic waves. Not detectable for all of those who did not share his powers, not affecting Erik himself, but the environment was a sensible one. His ability to control metal had often interfered the one or other circuit by accident. If he didn´t watch out, such a thing could happen quite easily.

He was half glad, half anxious to see her sitting at one of the main computers when he entered. She seemed to be busy, absorbed by what she was doing, her blue fingers flying over the keyboard with vicious speed. The clicking of keys and humming of computers and cooling system had drowned the sound of the doors sliding open and for a moment he just stood in the door frame, watching her blue shape. She looked so determined, so... desperate in a way that it made him sigh inwardly. They had grown apart he realized once more. How could that ever have happened?

For a split second his thoughts slipped from him, drifting away, and the grip on his powers that he had been careful to hold when he had entered slightly escaped from it. The screens started to flicker and in the same split of a second Mystique stopped hammering the keyboard, her whole body tensing like a cat´s before the leap.

"What do you want, Erik?" she said in her vibrating voice, not even granting him the friendliness of turning to face him, before she continued working as if his presence was no reason to stop what she had been doing.

He hesitated for a second or two, then he stepped a little closer, away from the door, but still leaving a space between them. "Your assistance" he said in a voice as casual and matter of factly as possibly, just in time being able to keep himself from saying ´your help´ instead. He walked over to the computer she was sitting at, coming to a halt about a metre behind her chair. She didn´t turn around which caused his chest to clench.

"Shade got into contact with one of the mutants that were with her before she escaped and we have a first trace now from where we can start to locate them."

"I see" was all she said.

Erik fought hard to remain factual. Her unemotional way of replying annoyed him. No, he told himself, he would not let her drag him into this struggle, not again. So he kept his expression free of emotion when he continued. "It is likely they were all taken to Washington DC although this is all we know up to know. The next step will be to locate their exact position."

"And you thought about appointing that job to me." It was no question, just a conclusion bereft of any emotion or interest.

"Yes, this is why I came here." he said, realizing that his voice sounded a little more dangerous than he had intended. She turned and got up, looking him directly into the eyes, smiling bitterly. "I thought so." she said in a low, lurking voice. "After all we´ve been through you still know me well enough to know that when it comes to it, I will do my job." Her gaze hardened. "Be a toy. Be a tool."

Erik didn´t break the eye contact. He knew she was testing him. She was testing if he was willing to give in, if he was willing to accept the stronghold she had built to shield herself against him. His heart clenched at her words and he fought hard to harden his gaze against hers.

"And a very reliable tool as I can tell from experience, my dear" he replied coldly, but when he saw fury enter her eyes he couldn´t keep himself from chuckling slightly, although it sounded more than bitter. He stepped back a little, turned to the side walking a few paces along the lines of computer screens causing them to flicker which made Mystique glare at him. "You know very well that you are more than a... tool, Raven."

"Don´t ever call me that again, Erik." she said baring her teeth like a cat. He looked up and their eyes met. He stepped a little closer his eyes never leaving hers. "Then act in a way that serves your true name justice." he said coolly causing her eyes to flicker shortly in surprise of this unexpected reply.

"We are mutants" he continued. "You and I. Whatever happened between us, mutantkind will be at an even more miserable stake than it already is if mutants fighting for their freedom walk on different paths." He stopped. "I can no longer count Pyro as an ally" he said. "I thought at least you would be superior enough to stand up for what you believe in... instead of letting emotions" he uttered that last word coldly "take away your focus on what really matters."

For what seemed like an hour she just returned his gaze, then she slowly nodded. "That just sounds like the man I used to admire." she said. "Sometimes it is better to harden your heart against such men. They only make you suffer."

"This man once told you you would never suffer again." he replied. "I failed you Mystique."

The change he saw in her was so abrupt, it both scared and amazed him. All her demandor of fury, fierceness and revenge vanished like a shadow. Her eyes softened, became sad, suddenly reminded him of the kid at the bus stop all those many years ago. She never said a word. She just walked the few paces towards him and lifted her slender blue scaled hand to touch his cheek ever so slightly. The scales on the back of her hand felt rough and welcome at the same time when they traced their way from his cheeks down to his jaw till they rested there to put up his chin, her eyes studying him intensely. All his boldness was gone, all his cold words vanished when he slowly did another step towards her gazing into her yellow reptile-like eyes before he leaned in to kiss her. When their lips touched, she withdrew and without another word or glance at him left the room.


	24. Castor and Pollux

_And again I kept you folks waiting for an update. Sorry. I just feel time´s running by too fast and my deadline comes nearer each day. Argh. But here you go, I finally found some time to continue this little story with a new chapter. Hope you enjoy. _

**XChocolateChipX:** Thankees. :-) Hope you keep enjoying my scribblings.

**2 wingo:** Uhm... nope, no heart attack or anything of that sort. Feeling week was not meant to be taken as physical weakness. Nice to see I can still surprise you. And oh, please don´t think I ignore your suggestions or something. They will be worked in later.

**EternalE: **Ah well, the two of them seem to have a hard time coping with each other. Whoever knows what might come of that. Wait and see ;-) Hehe, never giving up on the questions, do you? Well, concerning Erik´s dislike of the colour grey. I tried to connect grey to rain to his experiences in the camps. When you have another look at the chapters that deal with his nightmares this might become clear. Don´t know if it comes across as much as I had intended it. About his uniform. I had a discussion about that with AngelofSnow and she told me I could label it either dark grey or black. Angel did a great survey about Erik´s clothes with a lot of cool pictures which you can find on her website. Yay. So. He dislikes grey as a concept, because it is connected to his bad memories, grey stands for no clear distinction between good and bad it´s rather the concept than the colour he dislikes... does that make any sense?

**AngelofSnow:** Thanks for prefering my story to chicken soup ;-) Nice to hear you were feeling better when you were reading this. :-) Nearly almost, yes (loool)

**Meow: **Hey, nice to have you back and still enjoy :-)

* * *

**Chapter 24**

**Castor and Pollux**

Afterwards, he never knew how long he had remained in the control room staring at the screen closest to him, barely realising and at the same time ignoring the wild flicker it gave in protest of the lack of control he had over the magnetic waves he slightly emanated. It couldn´t have been for long, a matter of a few seconds maybe, for when he had turned on the heels to leave the room he had believed to see the last shimmer of Mystique´s slender blue form disappear around the corner at the far end of the corridor. But maybe he had been mistaken.

When he had made his way back to his study, the steps of his military boots echoing coldly from the metal walls, he would have wanted all the thoughts that were penetrating his mind to disappear to make room for things that truly mattered. He had things to do, a brotherhood to reform. He could not allow emotions to distract him and yet he had known he was betraying himself for being so cold. He had realised that ever since Mystique had returned to the lair, the animosity between them, at least on his side had hurt even more because he had so well known what it had replaced. His heart had jolted when he had leant to kiss her and he had had the feeling of something hard slamming it back to its place when she had withdrawn from him. Mystique had never been easy to cope with, but at least he had always known when it was best to approach her or to leave her in piece. She had never been unstable, neither in her feelings nor in her loyalty towards him. He believed he had regained the latter, but was that enough?

He had decided to do what he had always done when any kind of emotional uproar had threatened to take over his rational thinking. He had busied himself with things that if one only believed hard enough, seemed more important.

James Madrox, Multiple Man, returned to the lair in the late afternoon of the following day. Erik had had another phone call with him earlier wherein he had reported that he was taking along two other mutants. Two. Erik didn´t truly know what he had expected, but two? It seemed that reforming what once had been nearly a partisan army would take longer than he had ever believed. It seemed the Brotherhood was back at its roots again, back at the times where its members had been only a handful of fighters devoted for a cause. As small stone in the cogwheel of the machinery of an intolerant society. But again, it would be a beginning.

Without hesitation and without any other sign that indicated feelings in any direction Mystique had taken up the task to fly the helicopter to the shore the fetch the small group. They had not argued. They had not exchanged many words. To him it had seemed the tension that had been between the two of them had not lessened, but he had realised that the girl, Shade, had scowled and looked at them in a way as if she did not understand what was going on between them. Maybe women had finer antennas for these kinds of things, Erik had thought.

When Erik was sitting in the living room, half intent on reading a book he had rather randomly taken out of one of the wooden shelves that lined the walls, more to pass some time than out of real interest in reading with all these things occupying his mind, he heard them enter. When the front door was closed, he got to his feet, put the book aside and entered the corridor on the direct way, a second door, not via the kitchen. Mystique gave him a short look which did not betray any emotion when she said "We´re back" in her unique voice letting it sound rather random. She did a few paces towards him and then walked past him. Erik had the impression she was taking some effort not to let any part of her body touch him while he did so and sighed inwardly. No. No more of that. He gave Multiple Man a short nod that indicated a matter of factly greeting and turned as a sign for them to follow him into his study. No one said a word while he did so. No one dared and Erik smirked to himself when he realised that although Alcatraz Island had been the temporary fall of Magneto, the news of his regained power must have circulated enough to be respected by his fellow mutants again. They had always seen him as an authority. Most of them had eyed him with a mix of admiration, fear and respect, seldomly with friendship and as he walked the few paces to his study, waving the door open with a flick of his wrist, to his satisfaction he learned at least this had not changed. These two new ones were no exception.

However, he let the door remain open when he surrounded his desk, giving the new ones time to enter the room and take in the space and atmosphere of it. He had often experienced that mutants were taken aback by his study. It breathed metal, it breathed Magneto which he guessed had to be somewhat daunting.

He turned to face the three men who had entered his study. James had remained somewhat near the door eyeing him with much less suspicion than the two new ones, both of them men in their late twenties and as he realised with the quirk of an eyebrow, twins. Alike in each aspect of their outer appearance apart from the colour of their hair. One of them had auburn hair, the hair of the second brother was black. He looked at them and noticed they were obviously hiding their nervousness. A faint smile crossed his lips.

"Please, take a seat" he offered, indicating two metal chairs to etch closer to his desk by a small movement with both his hands. "It is good to have you here. Mutantkind needs brave minds to achieve its aims in a world that makes us outcasts." He eyed them warily saying what he always said when he took new members on the team... realising just in this moment that he had not done so when he had let Shade join him. "Being a member of the Brotherhood means being aware of what it means to be a mutant. It means to be willing to give your efforts for the Cause. To fight for the freedom of mutantkind. I have no need for traitors or those that might find it an adventure to come here and decide otherwise when things become serious, so if you are willing to join be warned this means to fight. I give you this choice now. Take it or leave."

The man with the auburn hair seemed irritated and tossed a glance towards his twin brother who did not return it but kept Erik´s gaze instead. "James told us what this was about." he said non-chalantly. "We wouldn´t have come here if we thought about treachery or leaving tomorrow." The black haired twin went on.

Erik smirked. "Well, that´s good to hear." He nodded his head towards Multiple Man. "James will show you to your rooms. They have been vacant for a while but I think you will be able to make yourselves comfortable." He looked at them. "How do they call you?" he asked leaning back in his chair while giving the Newton´s swing on his desk a faint flick with his mind to set it in motion. The auburn-haired brother gave it a transfixed look, while the other one answered his question. "I am Jamie Webster and this is my brother Ryan. We call ourselves Castor and Pollux."

Castor and Pollux then, Erik mused. The two twins from Greek mythology. Sons of the great Zeus it had been believed and together said to be immortal. He briefly wondered if the choice of their names reflected only in them being twins or in their powers as well.

"Are your powers the same?" he asked.

"No." This was the first time Ryan, the auburn-haired spoke. "They are ... actually very different. We are only alike in both being able to control stone. Me in making it come alife, him in destroying it."

"Hm... I see." A creator and a destroyer. Two twins whose powers formed a whole. "You will make an interesting and valuable addition to the Brotherhood." Erik said.

So it begins anew he thought to himself while he indicated to James to show the two of them to their rooms. He had never encountered a twin pair of mutants and he wondered how he would get along with them. Apart from being so alike in appearance, Erik sensed these two were very different in nature. Although their conversation had not taken long he believed to have taken a first glance into those two men´s characters. The dark-haired one, Jamie, who had called himself Castor, had appeared as the more dominant one of the pair. Headstrong and probably someone who would either turn into a devoted fighter for the cause or a difficult factor he would first have to teach his place in the hierarchy. The other brother, Pollux or Ryan, seemed to be quieter and a little more withholding and shy. Interesting, Erik mused, how their characters were reflected in their mutations. Castor, the more aggressive one had a power that was obviously aggressive while his brother appeared to be one of those mutants who had a power to be used for both but who preferred to fight defensively. Well, they would find their way into the team, he thought. New members meant new strength and as Mystique did not seem reluctant to do what he had asked her to do...setting her behaviour against himself aside... they would soon have information to start on. Soon they would strike.


	25. just a short update for my readers

A short update.

Hi guys!

No new chapter yet, sorry. I just wanted to leave a little note here telling you that I am still fine and have not abandoned this story Eternal E just reminded me that it´d be a good idea to stop by and let you guys know I´m still among the living. So... the next chapter of life after life will be posted some day soon, probably this weekend. I´m really sorry I have to keep you waiting, but I have been terribly occupied with my exam paper which has taken up far too much of my free time. So... if things go well, I will be able to print it all out tomorrow night... take it to the copyshop on Wednesday and hand it in on Friday when it´s copied and bound. So... yeah.. after that I´ll be able to turn to the joys of writing again. So, thanks for your reviews, I´ll of course comment on all of these once the next chapter will be up. See you then.

Nili


	26. Tricks and horses

_Okay, I feel bad. I feel really bad for letting you guys wait that long, but honestly, somehow I just didn´t come around to post more. Writer´s block or maybe just being overwhelmed with so much freetime that you don´t really know what to do with it? Don´t really know, honestly. However. Here – finally – is a new chapter of Life after Life._

**KumadaPuma:**

So sorry it took me so long to update. I hate waiting for updates myself, so... sorry, I hope this chapter will make up for the wait. ;-) And thanks for wishing luck. I´ve got no results for the paper yet.

**2wingo: **

Thanks for showing so much patience, my friend. :-) I used one of your ideas in this chapter. I credited it after the chapter...below there... (points) and really hope you´ll like it a little.

**XChocolateChipX:**

No, I haven´t abandoned it and I won´t ;-)

**J.Tyler:**

Hey, welcome :) and thanks for adding me to your alert list. Hope you´ll like this chapter.

**Meow:**

Yep, I still do exist. Sorry (hides in shame)

**AngelofSnow:**

Thanks, Angel :-) So, I just told you might write more of this chapter tomorrow, didn´t I? hah, surprise, surprise. :-p

**EternalE:**

Thanks for wishing luck. :-)

* * *

**Chapter 25 **

**Tricks and horses**

The next two days were strange in a way although they were a perfect example of what the lair had been like for most of its existence. A mutant hideout. Finally the floors were no longer empty most of the time and although the group was far from the size of the partisan army Erik had once counted amid his followers, it was a beginning. It was no longer just him and Mystique and their uncomfortable way of trying to avoid or tease each other in a way so different from what their relationship had once been. With the other mutants around, the lair had become more like an operation base again, although they were few only and although Erik had had the feeling of the place changing in atmosphere even when Shade had arrived and asked for help.

Jamie and Ryan Webster, or Castor and Pollux as Magneto preferred to call them, seemed to take an easy stand as new members of the Brotherhood. Castor, the black-haired one of the brothers was indeed the more straight forward of the twins whereas Pollux seemed to have a quieter and more thoughtful character – a kind of personality which seemed to make him a perfect victim for Mystique who took some pleasure in teasing the new one and scaring him by abruptly showing up or changing her outer appearance from her own blue shape into those of several members of the Brotherhood in turn or vice versa. Pollux was obviously irritated by this but too polite to give in to her pranks. He seemed to have a calm mind, a little too calm and generous maybe and Erik sometimes wondered if he would be of much help when things really got tight and they would have to fight. He had seen stout fighters in his life, he had seen mutants who had been desperate for revenge, but he had also seen faint hearted ones. He hoped, Pollux would not prove to be one of the latter group – a chain was just as strong as its weakest link.

However, whereas Castor took a more obvious interest in the plans of the brotherhood, Pollux had soon become friends with Shade. The two had met and seemed to be like-minded enough to bond at once in a way that made Erik think of a bigger brother – smaller sister kind of relationship and which also made clear to him that Shade was feeling a little lost within the Brotherhood. She was the youngest after all and up to now, if at all, Erik had been the one she had most often turned to. Now, that he was busy planning and especially because of the tension between himself and Mystique which – as he was sure- affected her and confused her – she had gladly taken up Pollux´s company. Erik didn´t like to admit it, but he felt a little left out. He had always been able to count on Mystique. They had been bonded in so many ways and he had not always been sure of her loyalty, but also of her company. He had been a hardly approachable authority ruling the Brotherhood, but this rule had never been lonesome with her by his side. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last he wished those days would return and yet whenever his mind strayed towards what had happened in that prisoners´ convoy, he felt his heart harden. Victory could not be achieved without losses.

It was afternoon already when he walked into the kitchen. His stomach was growling and he had not realised how hungry he had been until he had put his work aside. In the morning he had found a pile of prints on his desk showing the exact location the Children of the Sun were now inhabiting in the capital. It had been all information they would need and a big step forwards, but still a little sting near his heart as Mystique had done her job, but not more. She had not even handed these papers to him, she had just left them on his desk for him to study and make something of them.

When he entered the room, he heard damped voices from the living room and, not giving away he was there, he slowly walked over to the door to have a look. Shade was sitting on one of the sofas, her legs crossed, watching the auburn-haired mutant who was sitting on the carpet, busy with something Erik couldn´t see. The girl seemed fascinated whereas Pollux, a simple smile on his lips, seemed just as content and calm as ever.

"I still don´t understand your mutation" Erik heard the girl say. "Bringing stone to life. You mean you can make it do what you want it to do? Like making it fly?"

Pollux looked up to her. "Something like that, but still a little different."

"Show me" the girl commanded.

"Okay then" Pollux got to his feet and turned towards one of the book shelves. "Let´s see what we´ve got here." He stood still for a second or two, then grabbed one of the stone made bookends. Half a dozen books fell over and Erik had to hold back in order not to rush in and keep them tumbling to the floor. Instead he just scowled inwardly, crossing his arms in front on his chest, interested to see what the young mutant would to.

Pollux carefully placed the bookend on the table and Erik could now see he had chosen the one that was shaped like a bolting horse. Some rather trashy Christmas present he had gotten years ago he remembered. The young man looked at the teenage girl, then he closed his eyes briefly and touched the stone made horse. All of a sudden, the figurine shook its stone made mane and descended on all four hoofs. The stone made a silent clatter when it landed on the table. Then the small bookend horse shook all over and started to walk towards Shade like a miniature horse in all the little detail its maker had given to it when carving it from the stone, but no longer appearing as immovable as stone, but almost animated with some sort of life of its own.

Erik had watched the young mutant with a fascination which equalled the fascination Shade was showing for this little demonstration only he did not squeal in girlish delight as the girl did in that moment. Interesting, he thought, interesting indeed. He curved a little smile, making up a possible scenario in his head with the Brotherhood´s next mission. Master of Metal, masters of stone. He smiled.

In this moment, Shade lifted her gaze and saw him standing in the doorframe. Immediately her cheeks reddened with embarassment and she clamped her hands around the little horse that had by now reached the rim of the expensive table and was testing the depths down to the carpet with one of its hoofs. When the girl closed her hands around its stone body it attempted to shake its mane in protest. Pollux, scowling slightly followed the eyes of the girl and turned around. He didn´t blush, but seemed to be uncomfortable, too. In the moment he did no longer concentrate on the figurine, the horse became what it had been – immovable stone – looking slightly grotesque with its head bent back in a weird angle to snap for Shade´s finger in order to be set free.

Pollux looked like a small boy who had been caught with his hand in a box of cookies. "I´m sorry, if I... I just wanted to..."

Erik raised his hands. "Oh, no, no, don´t appologize" He did a few paces into the room. "In fact, this little demonstration was rather fascinating." He couldn´t help it. He walked over to the book shelf and put the half a dozen books which had fallen into a tumble, back into their places. His gaze rested on a leather bound issue of Shakespeare´s ´Richard III´ for a short moment, then he placed it back with the others.

"A creator indeed" he murmured in a low voice when he left the room, a smile still playing on his lips.

Evenings in the lair seemed to have become rather dull. Although there were now some more mutants around than had been for quite a time, this was simply not the group Magneto had once had. Back then, the Brotherhood had been a small group of like minded mutants which also meant that they had known each other well and often seeked each other´s company. They had always kept a respectful distance to Erik, but he had liked the atmosphere in the evenings when he would find two or three of them together in the kitchen, busy with their dinners or the younger ones like Callisto and Archlight fighting over TV proprammes. The new Brotherhood was a small pile of mutants who had not been recruited in the same fashion. Shade had come seeking for aid and Erik guessed that Castor had more followed his brother than decided by himself to play an active part in the fight for mutant rights. Multiple Man had always been a loner... as far as one could call someone like him that, who preferred his own company to that of others. Mystique would not spend too much time with the others these days and Pollux seemed to seek Magneto´s company more than the company of his brother and the teenage girl, like a minor wolf seeking the friendship of the leader of the pack. He was granted no more attention than any of them though.

This constellation of characters mostly left the kitchen and living room empty in the evenings with a few occasions of Shade and Castor watching a movie or talking together which made the lair a rather dull places this time of the day. Like tonight. Although Erik had been clear on the fact that he held no grudges against any of the two because of them using his appliances to use their powers on, his appearing in the doorframe seemed to have daunted their spirit for further exploration a little. The lair seemed deserted with everybody having found something to do in solitude. Empty and silent... or nearly so.

With an annoyed sigh, Erik looked up from the documents he had been studying. There was no doubt. Someone was playing loud music and if there was something he despised it was being bothered like this when he was trying to concentrate. He had left the door of his study open for reasons he didn´t know. Maybe it was the stubborn behaviour of a man who thought himself to be the "leader of the pack" – to pick the wolf symbolism once more – again and this part of him wanted to know what was going on in the lair... in his lair. He wanted to know if anyone was up to something... and in particular he wanted to know if someone particular, someone blue and scaled was approaching, although he knew perfectly well that Mystique´s footfall was too light for him to hear.

Therefore, had the metal door been closed, the music would not have bothered him – like this, it very well did. With a controlled movement of his hand he pushed the documents aside and with a flick of his mind, he pushed back the metal chair he was sitting on. With a growing annoyance he walked over to the door and entered the corridor. The music was louder here. Music, or what this noise was supposed to be called. Erik scowled in discontent thinking that this was not worth to be called music the same manner as the music he preferred. This was a loud and shrill staccato of basses and single notes mixed together in a disruptive clatter and noise. As he walked on however, his expression softened as he knew now where the music was coming from.

Shade´s room was another few paces down the corridor and with a smile on his face his mind felt for the CD Player in the room he was approaching, his power quickly blocking the relay it used. The noise stopped abruptly, causing a small call of dismay from behind the door. He knocked.

Some steps of feet on socks and some seconds later the teenage girl opened the door. She gave Erik a questioning look. "Hello" she said. "Can you repair my player? I think it´s broken or something." She stepped aside to point at the cause of noise which she had placed on the table. He gave her a look which slightly resembled the look a teacher would give a disobediant pupil who he could still never be too angry with. "It will be back to work in no time. I took the liberty to lessen the volume a little. You might not have heard me knocking with all the noise."

"Noise?" She gave him a look which clearly told him she thought he had just said something totally stupid. Erik noted with satisfaction the self-confidence of the girl had grown. She would never have talked back to him like that a few days ago. He raised an eyebrow while the girl was still looking at him. "That´s no noise, it´s the coolest stuff ever. Everybody listens to it."

"Well, when I last looked, music was something having to do with culture, with dancing" he replied in slight mockery which just brought him another look of confusion.

"Of course one can dance to this." she insisted.

Erik chuckled. "I do not know whether the art of dancing can be compared to the hopping of some teenagers in a random disco."

She gave him another disapproving look. "You can dance?" she asked.

"A little." he replied. "Not what you young folk would call dancing maybe, but yes."

She didn´t say anything, just looked at him scowling, a gaze which clearly told: ´Dance? You?´

"A little is not enough" she noted with a smart expression on her face. "Maybe I should teach you a little about who people dance nowadays."

"Oh, no, no" Erik gave another chuckle. "One should better leave this kind of activity to you and your age, Shade. "

She laughed and shook her head. "But why?" She turned towards the player. "Women like it when guys can dance."

He sighed and let the relay flip back into place. "Lower that volume" he said half threateningly and she obeyed rolling her eyes a little while he attempted to turn around and head back to his desk. "Come on, what´s to it?" she insisted again and while Erik seriously began to ask himself what had gotten into the girl – had she eaten something that hadn´t become her? – Shade started to do what she herself had called dancing and he had referred to as "hopping"

"It´s easy" she said. "Just give it a try."

He laughed. "Why don´t you ask Pollux? Where is he by the way?"

"You´re just trying to get away now aren´t you?" the girl insisted and before he could add anything to that she stepped next to him, both turning their backs towards the still open door. "It´s easy and it´s fun" she said. "You just do it like this." And she started to perform some movements with her arms and legs which were definitely closer to hopping than dancing.

Somehow, Erik knew he wouldn´t get away that easy while a little part of him was actually enjoying the openness and friendliness this girl was showing to him. So, not completely being sure why he actually did this and giving himself the mental note that he would stop this nonsense after half a minute so Shade had her will and he could have his peace again, he started to immitate her dancing which caused the girl to laugh. "Good." She said between her chuckling. "Not that hard isn´t it?"

"No." He said stopping the whole nonsense. "And now, no more of this. I need to work, so please put down that volume or next time I will be more creative about the relays of this CD player." He turned around, determined to get back to more serious matter... and almost ran into someone who was casually standing in the door frame, arms crossed before her chest. A broad grin spread across the face of the blue shape shifter. "I didn´t know you were such a party boy" Mystique said teasingly while his face turned to an expression which made it look like it was carved from stone. For a moment, their eyes were locked and the tension between them was nearly unbearable. Then he heard Shade walk past and leave the room. "I´ll be right back" she said and her voice sounded very content with herself.

"I didn´t know you were up for some dancing, Erik." Mystique added in a low voice and walked a little closer. What he saw in her eyes was something that was hard to place. An expression somewhere between mockery and... affection. She walked closer. He didn´t move. She streched out her hands. "How long haven´t we danced together now, Erik." She said and her voice was bereft of her former mockery. It just sounded sad and while she came even closer, while he pulled her towards him and while she closer her eyes and rested her head and her fire red hair against his chest, clutching his pullover with both her hands like someone does who has finally found someone she has desperately been looking for for a long time, Erik faintly realized that the music had changed and there was no more of the techno staccato running, but now soft, romantic tunes were filling the room. He took his arms around Mystique, closing his eyes, slowly starting to move his feet in a manner of slow, calming dancing. Shade was gone.

Deceitful girl!

* * *

**Note:**

_Special thanks for this chapter go to 2wingo. The idea of Shade teaching Erik how to dance comes from him, so: thanks so much! I very much hope I did do it justice! What did you think? Did you like it? _


	27. Lovers and fighters

_Author´s note:_

_And again I managed to put you guys off for far too long, therefore my humble apologies to all of my dear reviewers who might have waited for another chapter or thought I had run off never to return. Be sure I didn´t and I won´t. It´s only that my exams are taking up an aweful lot of time and will continue to do so for another couple of months which not only means little time to write but also minor writer´s blocks. So, here´s a new chapter as my muse kicked me today. It´s not too long, but a cut felt right at this moment, so... hope you´ll like it. Not much action here, turning towards brotherhood everyday life before getting the gang into trouble. ;-)_

**AngelofSnow:** your reviews always make me smile. Great to see you like those little details (detail... you Americans really stress the second sillable of that, don´t you? That´s weird! ;-) )Yes, I was referring to Ian playing Richard (nods) and I think he would most likely hate anything even faintly related to hip hop (lol) He should definitly not do anything like that (agrees) So glad you liked it :-) So here you go, terrible cliffhanger being solved

**XChocolateChipX:** Sorry for letting you wait that long again. :-/ Hope you´ll forgive me. Yep, still alive (bangs head against keyboard in frustration)

**Ratdogtwo**: Thankees :-) Welcome (in case you reviewed before, my memory sucks right now, in that case it would of course be welcome back ;-))

**Meow:** Good to know you like it :-) Mystique is unpredictable, isn´t she. I find it extremely difficult myself to guess what she´s up to next (lol)

**2wingo:** I had so hoped you´d approve of it:-) I really liked this idea right away, it only took me some time to put it in. Aww, you know how to flatter me, don´t you? Sir-Ian-would-be-proud-of-you- kind of things make me grin like stupid for several hours, just so you know ;-) Oi, didn´t even intent "constellation" as a word play (just liked the word as a non native speaker (lol)) but thanks for pointing out :-)

**EternalE:** There´s my good voice again, telling me not to bolt off and hide behind all the stupid books that are slowly threatening to take over far too much space around my computer ;-) Sorry I let you wait that long! Exams will start properly by the end of February and last till the end of June (aaargh) and I´ve no result of my paper yet which seriously unnerves me right now (Hmpf)

**Emperor K. Rool:** No need to apologize, it´s me who´s late again, remember? ;-) Yeah, looks like it, doesn´t it?

* * *

**Chapter 26**

**Lovers and fighters**

Afterwards he wouldn´t have been able to tell how long their embrace had lasted until Mystique had freed herself from his arms. It might have been minutes, but as well, it could have lasted longer. The song had long been over, their dancing however, had continued and slowly turned into something more like comfort, peace, affection. Despite all the thoughts racing through his mind, making his nerves tingle with the attempt not to affect the metal around him, he had suddenly known it had been too long a time since he had last held her like this. It had been an embrace of comfort, fairly similar to the times when she had first stayed at the lair and he had come to her to take his arms around her to chase away nightmares that had troubled her and made her cry. She would grab his shirt just as she did not, silently weeping, releasing the burdens of her young life to him without words. And then again, the embrace they had shared had been more, a lover´s embrace. One that only too painfully told him that he had been incomplete these days. The cure had bereft him of his powers, had made him a lesser man, had robbed him of his dignity, his pride and yet had not been able to pull him down. But holding Mystique in his arms he had suddenly known that one piece of the puzzle had been missing and now been put into its place again. He had almost snorted inwardly, as he had had the feeling his own thoughts, the thoughts of Magneto, were becomming sappy.

When Mystique had loosened her grip on his shirt, he had loosened her arms around him. She had done a step back, looking at him out of her yellow, reptile-like eyes. Looking at him as if she was studying, trying to read his mind ever so briedly. "Never again." was all she had said, before she had almost violently grabbed his collar again and drawn him into a passionate kiss.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

When he woke up, the space next to him in his bed was empty. She had gotten up earlier than him, left the blanket drawn back on her side before she had left the room. She had not waited for him to wake – something she had hardly ever done. Mystique had always been someone with the need to roam free, yet her early leave told him that although there would be no more tension of the like they had endured these days between them, she was still intent on showing him where the borders lay. Her differences put aside she still demonstrated that he had yet to earn her full trust again.

It was shortly past eight o´clock – he hadn´t gotten up that late for a long time.

When he walked into the kitchen, he found Shade sitting on the counter, a bowl of cereals drenched in cocoa on her lap and a spoon to big for cereals in her hand. The girl was listening to music against which, this time, blarred from an i-pod tuned loud enough for him to hear from the door. She was humming the tune, her eyes closed.

With a flick of his mind, Erik felt for the metal in her ear plugs and simultaneously plucked the earplugs from her ears and bent the cereal spoon so its load missed her open mouth and landed back in the bowl.

"You really should be more careful about your sense of hearing, my dear." He said, ignoring her startled glance with a thin smile. "You might miss the ability to hear once it´s gone." He flicked the coffee machine on and with a wave of his hand pushed the chair closest to the counter away from the table. "Please." He said blankly and the girl wordlessly hopped from the counter. As he was about to get a cup from the board he had his back to her but he was pretty sure she was rolling her eyes as she obeyed and sat on the chair. Teenagers, he sighed inwardly.

He put a slice of bread into the toaster and started it mentally, feeling the girls eyes on his back all the while. Waiting for the bread to get ready he took his time until the toaster clicked, let the coffee pot and spoon hover over to the table and took his time to settle down on the table across the young mutant. He could see the girl was dieing to know if her trick had worked and he enjoyed keeping her on tenterhooks.

"I guess I might be indebted to you now." he finally said, leaving his face blank of emotions, fighting back a smile. He could see the tension fall off her. "I told you girls like guys who can dance." she said. He chuckled in reply, taking a sip of his black coffee.

"The ability to dance alone is not enough." came a low purr from over at the door when Mystique entered and walked past them towards the fridge, shortly resting her hand on Erik´s shoulder. When he turned his head to look at her, she saw the mischief glitter in her eyes. Erik shot a glance at the blue shape shifter who, ignoring his glare, seemed to take pleasure in making the younger mutant feel uncomfortable. "Erik has more valuable talents than dancing." She grinned broadly. Shade placed her cereal bowl onto the metal table with a ´clunk´, suddenly looking as she was about to be sick.

"Mystique." His voice was low, half amusement, half resentment, although he knew she wouldn´t care about what he said. She loved teasing.

"Uhm... I guess I´m not hungry any longer." Shade said with a forced smile, trying to hide her slight disgust and rather hastily placed the bowl on the counter before she nearly bolted from the kitchen.

Mystique took her place, watching him with an intense glance.

"Was that necessary?" he asked.

"No." she shook her head. "But it was fun."

With a purring laugh, Mystique once more sent the dark haired mutant to the ground. Castor had taken quite a beating over the last 15 minutes, although he was holding a better stand than his twin brother Pollux, who had settled down on the floor, his back leaning against the cool wall, still looking exhausted. Shade had walked over to him and the two of them were talking, with the girl doing most of the conversation.

Erik had decided to start the training for the new ones first thing in the morning after breakfast. Multiple man was rather good in shape and able to work out on his own, but Erik had wanted to get an idea about how agile and trained the two new ones, the twins, were. As their character features had told before, the brothers were different in a lot of ways, including fighting. Castor was more trained than his brother, his blows were fiercer and more angry, yet more uncontrolled, while Pollux way of fighting was more defensive and less effective. Erik had seen the auburn-haired of the brothers use his powers the day before and made a mental note to let them, especially Pollux, keep an eye on training. Powers or not, mutants tended to trust in them too much.

Castor got up with a groan. He had tried to handle Mystique, but he was getting weary – and frustrated.

"Enough for now." Mystique told him with a superior smile, then turned her back on him and walked into the corner of a room where she had placed a water bottle

"Why do we have to do this?" he said, wiping the sweat on his forehead away with his sleeve, breathing heavily while he looked over at Erik. "I know my powers. That´s where I´m strong." Erik could sense that the young mutant was forcing himself not to speak up against his authority too harshly. "What do I need this for if I have my powers to fight and defend?" He now stood a few metres from Erik, grabbing a towel from a metal bench, wiping his face, then sat down.

It only took him two or three seconds, to command two metal barbels to rush towards the young mutant. One hovering only inches from the young man´s skull, the other had backed Castor against the metal wall with a gasp.

"You need it." he simply said, sounding matter of factly, then, his gaze finding Castor´s, his eyes became steely. "You need them in case you have no opportunity to play your powers. A room without stone like this." he said. "or a place with stone totally out of reach for you and you will be an easy prey." The barbel on Castor´s chest pressed a little more focefully. "... for those that oppose you." He sent the barbels back to their original places and got up to leave. The last thing he needed was a little rebel in his ranks. He hoped, Castor would not make it a custom to question him.


End file.
